The Lord is faithful even when
we are faithless. You know, we have a...we have
a strange mixture in our culture today. It came to my attention
yesterday, I don't know why, but you know, having been in
the so-called church growth movement for so long and the mindset of
mega-churches and millions and billions of dollars and thousands
and thousands of people and hundreds and hundreds of baptisms. It
was really bad twelve years ago when I came to the understanding
of the error of a lot of that. It doesn't mean churches can't
be big, it doesn't mean churches can't do a lot of things or even
have a lot of buildings, but that's not the motivation for
what we do. It's the consequence of what
God does, if it's correct. But as I begin to look and see
what the polemicists are doing these days, and a polemicist
is someone who goes and tries to make light of negative things
like watch out for the wolf or look at this bad thing, warning,
don't put your hand here, they're necessary. As a matter of fact,
it's one of the things that a pastor is supposed to do, commanded
by the Word, is to fend for the flock, is to fight for the flock.
It's to teach the truth in love. It's to say when I see y'all
opening up your books, the shack, I'm supposed to say, whoa, whoa,
whoa, what are you doing? Don't read that. That's not scriptural. It'll give you an emotional tie
to something that's not godly. And it surely isn't the God of
the Bible, but it is the God of this world. And I started
to realize just how far things have come. See, things have gotten
better for me in my view. Because as we were in California
and the Lord was gracious to me to allow a church to grow
in the depths of God's grace and in the view of His sovereignty
and then coming here to Plant Grace Truth Church, I'm spoiled. I forgot just how hard it could
be, how difficult it could be. And I began to look and talk
with some of the young brothers in the world and around the country
that I've known for some time and I realized just what they're
going through and how they're fighting fighting, menacing circumstances. How they're looking to get up
every day and wish that God would just kill them so that they wouldn't
have to face church this morning. So they wouldn't have to go and
participate in the organisms or the organization that man
has created and call it worship. So they wouldn't have to put
aside the scriptures so that they could have a show that would
entertain people who hear nothing about the truth. And many of
you may be in that same boat. You've been part of Grace Truth
for so long, you've forgotten what the alternative looks like.
You've forgotten what the alternative, and you've forgotten that the
world has a church that's larger than any free grace church will
ever be. Sovereign grace church will ever
be. Because the world loves itself. And as I began to look at this
stuff and I began to literally weep throughout the week several
times at what my brothers are going through just in our own
community, it struck me that it's a good reminder that the
work's not done. Beloved, God hasn't called us
to the work of just being a myopic little closed in. That means
self-centered and self-focused and narrow focus. That's what
the myopic means. We're not called to just be a
group of people that close out the doors. We're supposed to
be in here and this is a safe place as we gather together throughout
the week. But then we're to go out into
the darkness as light. And some of us have different
temperaments. Some of us have different expressions. Some of
us have different opportunities to engage in different ways.
But all of us have been given a great torch of the gospel of
Christ. And we've been given a great light that is supposed
to go out into the darkness. And every time we have opportunity,
we're supposed to proclaim God and proclaim the Son who is God. And there's one thing that is
always true about the way our world looks at God. Everybody
understands and never disagrees about the faithfulness of God
until it comes to something that invades our own sovereignty. What does that mean? What does
it mean to have our own sovereignty? Sovereignty by definition is
an exercise of supremacy. So if something is sovereign,
that means it has absolute role, rule and control over everything. My beloved, we have no place
of sovereignty in anything, even our own thoughts. Can you keep
your thoughts straight? Your own feelings. Our feelings
are liars. They lie to us every day. They've
lied to me this morning. You feel bad. You're tired. Maybe you should call Jesse to
preach for you. You don't feel good. That's true, I don't feel
good, but who cares? As long as I'm not projecting
anything but words up here, let's just hold fast. It might be too close. The front
low is almost empty. KB's over long side. But the
faithfulness of God is true, and it's not just something we
say, it's something that we know. It's not just something we experience,
because if we gauge the faithfulness of God in our experiences, beloved,
we will say, oftentimes, man, God has just lost it here. God
is, where is he? Like Job would say, where are
you, God? But God had never left, and God will never leave us.
The scripture is under attack in ways that I never imagined.
It's not just reform theology, which if you could define what
that means, I call it what the Bible teaches. I don't know why
we have to segregate it into a theological system. The whole
point of reform doctrine is that it is the doctrine that came
back to light through the power of God 500 years ago. This October 31st is when it
began, and it was a calling out of wolves and falsehoods. That's
what the Reformation was. That's where the word Protestant
comes from. Protestants. We protested the
abuse of the Word of God for the gain of men. We protested
the relegating of God's Word to a script that should be used
as a reference. And we held it back up as it
claims it is itself. I know that grammar is not correct,
but as it claims of itself, we held it up or they held it up.
God continues to hold his word up as his only word, his only
revelation, his only power, his only instrument of grace. But
yet I see, I listen to sermons, yes, I don't know why I torture
myself like this, but I listened to a sermon yesterday with a
series about the Bible that was going on and on for weeks and
weeks and weeks in this very seemingly very large church from
what I could tell from the videos. And this pastor, not only, now
I'm getting to that, this pastor, he continued to teach week after
week after week about how the Bible, though informative, is
not authoritative. And the Bible, though accurate
mostly, is not inerrant. And when we placate to the atheistic
arguments of the world, we become fools by professing to become
vain and wise. And the Scripture says, Paul
says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, that the foolish things of
the world will profound the wise, and the nothings of the world
will bring to nothing the things that are. And that the weakness
of God, if there was such a thing, is greater than the strength
of man. And the stupidity of God, the foolishness of God,
if there was such a thing, is greater than all the wisdom of
man. So the very nature of the divine revelation of this Scripture
is that The world thinks it's stupid. The world thinks it's stupid.
Well friends, if there is a problem here, anywhere within the scripture,
I'm not saying there's not errors, I found typos in my R.L. Allen
book Bible, typos, but that's not God's problem. There are
about 2,000 variants in the New Testament manuscripts over 1,500
years. I mean, tell me, if we all wrote
down the same thing I said right now, there wouldn't be comma
problems and an or a or the word there. Which one do I use? There's
three. Does it matter? Does it matter? We don't have
to answer for God. Do you know that? We don't have
to defend God. We don't have to defend his word. It defends
itself. The word of God presupposes that mean it stands on something
that's absolutely true to itself. It just says it supposes that
God exists. It doesn't prove His existence.
As a matter of fact, the Scripture says that everybody's without
excuse, according to Romans 1, that everyone in this world,
every living human being that ever has lived, is living, or
will live, knows that God exists. It's not about the existence
of God that matters. We don't need to fight that fight.
Now, is that a good thing to answer? Yes. But even answering
the question, without God's supernatural divine intervention, without
the Word of God piercing the heart of stone and of death and
bringing to life that dead person, they cannot believe no matter
what they believe in our argument. What's the point in all that?
Because here in this text that Paul has written, beloved, as
I was preaching it last week, literally in the midst of the
sermon, I realized I wanted to take this week and talk about
an aspect of our salvation that directly relates to the faithfulness
of God. And that is our glorification. In this text, look at it with
me, we'll read it together. Chapter 2 of Thessalonians, 2
Thessalonians, verses 13 through 17, it says, But we ought to
always give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the
Lord, because God chose you for Himself from the beginning to
be saved. through sanctification by the
Spirit and belief in the truth. To this He called you through
our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
And that's where we'll be today. So then brothers stand firm and
hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by
our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ
himself and God, the father who loved us and gave us eternal
comfort and good hope through grace, comfort our hearts and
establish them in every good work and word. Let's pray. Oh, dear Father, we stand before
you and sit before you. We come before you this day,
Lord, as as an audience to hear your word. And Father, the instrument
of my vocal cords, Lord, could do great damage to truth. May you guard them. You guard
my mind from commentary that is not sufficient to your holy
writ. Lord, would you protect the ears of us as a people of
this congregation from any error or absence of truth or any opportunity
that I may take sideways something that may not be understood by
me correctly. Father, fill us all with your
fullness that your spirit may guide us and direct us to all
truth. Lord, protect us from the ways of this world. Protect
us from the division of the enemy who tempts even your people.
to take their eyes off of Christ Jesus. And Lord, may your word
do a mighty work in the hearts of all of us today, giving us
security and confidence in Jesus Christ alone, not our works,
not the fruit of our faith, nor any of these things. But father,
in the finished work of Jesus Christ, whom you put forward
to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin. Lord, as you work in
us this day, encourage us. that we might be more intimate
around your word together with each other in our lives. Each
moment we have. Father, there may be in the sound
of my voice today, those who have not been born of you. There
may be some Lord who are not called out of darkness this very
day. Father, please call them to life.
bring them to salvation, cause them to believe and to see and
to glory in your glory. In Jesus name we pray, amen. As a way of review, we see in
this text where Paul begins in chapter two, verse 13, that there
is a gratefulness that the apostles have toward God for the work
that he's done in the lives of these Christians in Thessalonica
and this Paul begins to say that the reason for their gratitude
is that they are not like those who have been sealed for destruction.
They are not those who are reprobate. They are not those who have rejected
the truth of the gospel, but rather, as we see in the first
letter, they are those who have received the Word of God with
power and in the Spirit. Paul says, you did not receive
it just as words of man, just in words, but you received it
with power and with the Spirit. And so the effectuality of hearing
the gospel, that means it does do something. It works continually,
always. That's what efficacy means, effectual.
It has an effect on people. The gospel does not go out to
dead ears or deaf ears. You might say, wait a minute,
didn't you just... Yes. Dead people can hear the gospel, but
it just doesn't bounce off their head and go into the wilderness.
It will either plant a seed of God for God to bring redemption
to these people, or it will harden the heart of these people who
hate it. It's going to do something. It does not return to God void,
as we see in the Old Testament. But here they are thankful for
God loves them, because God loves them. They are the elect. They are the saved ones. They
are the church. They are the sealed ones. And
God's love for them is shown because they are recipients of
the grace of God. They are the ones who have received
eternal life through hearing the gospel. And the reason that
is so is because God chose them for himself before the world
began in the beginning. And that's what we preached last
week. Friends, God does not love us because we've done something.
God does not love us because we've believed. God does not
love us because we have come to our senses. God loved us and
does love us before we were. Otherwise, where is God's faithfulness?
If God is faithful to love, then God's faithfulness to love must
be in Himself and His own faithfulness, not in what we do faithfully. But then the error of that is
that, well, doesn't God love all people? Beloved, there's a very, very
clear and explicit teaching scripture about the love of God. And one
of those things is that it is not something that God feels. It is something that God does.
It is something that God decrees, and God decreed before He created
anything to save His people for Himself and to be glorified in
their salvation. Undeservedly, He saves us, not
because of us, in spite of us. And He is not maniacal, for He
is worthy of all praise and glory and honor. He's not a monster,
for what monster subjects himself to the futility of creation and
to the fall and lives with complete temptation? God has lived among
us. Jesus Christ is God. The Son. He's lived among us. He was hated
by the very ones He created. He was tempted in every way that
man will ever be tempted, yet he sinned not. He obeyed God
completely, as God had told all of us and teaches all of us now,
to be holy in a command. He commands all humanity to be
holy, and no humanity is holy, but Jesus Christ, the God of
heaven, the Son of God, came to this earth and lived in the
wicked shadows of humanity and the fallenness of this world
in perfect obedience so that He as a human being is perfectly
righteous. And all the obedience of Christ,
all the obedience of Christ, all the obedience, let me say
that again, all the obedience of Christ now belongs to us. It belongs to us. We have been
credited Christ's righteousness. We haven't been given God's holiness.
We've been given Christ's righteousness, obedience perfectly. And so, beloved, as we come to
this, we are reminded that this is because God loved us. God
loved us in this way, that He gave His only Son, that whoever
is believing in Him has eternal life, but whoever is not believing
in Him is condemned already, for he is not believing on the
Son of God. That's what John 3, 16 and 17
says. Don't just read 16. It's the
middle of a sentence, in the middle of a paragraph, in the
middle of three chapters of a letter. We call the gospel of John. Read it all. God's love for us
is first, we love Him because He first loved us. And I made
the comment last week or the week before, it might have been
on a Tuesday night, people like to say, well, God loves the sinner
and hates the sin. God loves the sinner who has
been justified by Him. God loves the sinner who has
his affection poured out on him. God loves the sinner that he
will save through Jesus Christ. God is not going to pour judgment
on a bag of murder or a case of gossip. He is going to pour
wrath upon those who commit these things. The wrath of God will
be poured out on all the unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. And God, therefore, later turns
them over to a reprobate mind. See how amazingly important it
is for us to understand God's faithfulness? Because, beloved,
we cannot measure ourselves by the image of our lives. We must
measure our righteousness by the image of Christ. Because
even in the greatest of seasons of our Christian walk, we are
still guilty. We're still guilty. So if it
is not God, it is not so. And this is the love that we've
been shown. This is how John could cry out
in first John three. Oh, see what kind of love the
father has given to us, that we should be called the children
of God. And so we are. God chose him for himself from
the beginning. Why did he do that? Unto what? Through sanctification
by the Spirit. You notice that? And belief in
the truth. We don't say God doesn't believe
for us. We believe as a gift that God
gives us. But this work is the work of
God, His faithfulness to save His people, His faithfulness
to bring the gospel to you. Look at that. So then, to this,
verse 14 is what we'll be for the rest of the time. To this
He called you. He called you to what? He called
you to sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
He called you to that. God said, hey, sinner, come to
me. Come! And many hear the call
to come and they go, not even, not going to do that. But for some strange reason,
for some miraculous divine purpose, God allowed you to hear. And
not only did God allow you to hear, God allowed you to come.
And God allowed you to believe. And God allowed you repentance
and trusting in your own righteousness. And God allows you faith. And
God allows you faithfulness in His faithfulness. It's our only hope. He called
you through what? Our gospel. He said they would
be sanctified, set apart, sealed by the Spirit, and that they
would believe in the truth that they hear. This is what He called
us to through His gospel. So God has called you. What does
that look like? Well, on the surface it looks
like this. The gospel of Jesus Christ, as
Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15, is that Christ was buried. according to the Scriptures,
and raised, according to the Scriptures, this gospel that
Jesus Christ died, according to the Scriptures. Why? To be propitiation, to satisfy
God the Father, so that His forgiveness of you, His justification, His
declaration, His judicial gavel on the hammer of His own throne
that said, you are no longer going to pay the penalty of your
sin. You are innocent. So that God would be just. He
put our guilt on Christ. He's called you through the hearing
of that word. I want you to understand this
for a second. What Paul is helping them remember is not to get caught
up in these false teachings, not to get caught up in these
problems that are going on. Don't lose sight of Jesus Christ
and His work because you're being harassed or persecuted or tempted. Don't lose focus on how you've
become saved. Don't lose focus on where your
hope lies. And that hope lies in the faithfulness
of God to the point that He encroaches into the world, into the history
of man divinely. That's why I read Isaiah 46 when
we started. God will do what He's going to
do. And just like an eagle flying from the east or a bird of prey,
He will send His prophet into the places where His people are
and they will come to faith. God calls His people. He will bring the gospel to you,
beloved. It is such a certain salvation that when we look at
it as it's shown to us in Scripture, there is nothing left for us
to do but just sit silent. And then when we do speak, we
can do nothing but praise Him for His glorious grace. God called you. It was done. He made certain that you would
hear the truth in order to be saved because He chose you in
the beginning for Himself because you are His beloved. In Romans
chapter 8 verse 28, it's one of our favorite verses in our
circles, isn't it? And we know that for those who
love God and are called according to His purpose, what does it
say before that? We know that God calls us all
things to work together. God causes all things to work
together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He
did what? He also predestined to be conformed
to the image of His Son in order that He might be the firstborn
among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also
what? Called. He called. Friends, this is something
that you need to grasp. It is not a popular truth because
no truth is popular. No truth does not cause hostility
in the minds of the natural man. Many have come and gone from
our fellowship because of the simple, explicit truth of Scripture. Not my commentary, the truth
of Scripture. My commentary may not help it. But it's not our message, it's
the message of God. God has called those He foreknew. He's called those He predestined
to be in the image of His Son. He's called those. And those whom He has called,
He has also justified. You see, the past tense that
Paul uses in Romans chapter 8 is to show us just the solidity
of the faithfulness of God, that it is a done thing. Salvation
is of the Lord and it is secure and certain. Salvation, that
you rest in this day. And sometimes we writhe our hands
together, and we bite our nails, and we grit our teeth, and we
cry, and we wonder, where am I, Lord? Where am I, Lord? Our
hope is in the gospel of Jesus. Our hope is in the Son of God.
Our steadfastness is not in what we can do in response to God's
call, but our steadfastness is in the certainty of God's call.
Do you see that? See that, church. Stop considering
your way apart from God's sovereignty. Stop looking at the circumstances
of life as though they're not a gift from God. Beloved of God, sickness, frustration, pain,
financial problems, depression, Abuse? Addiction? What is it? Man, that's really
awful for you to say that God gave us those things as a gift.
Well, beloved, He didn't give them to us as a gift and they're
worthless. And as we'll see, I'm going to mention 2 Corinthians
4, it's like my John B. God causes these things. He justified. And those whom He justified,
He also glorified. It's a certainty, beloved. In
Ephesians chapter 1 it says, Blessed be the God and the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us
for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according
to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace,
with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. What does that
show us? They show us that the calling
of God is never and has never been, nor ever will be, human
in origin. The call of God is not human.
It is divine. The call of God, though He uses
men's vocal cords, is the work of God. It is the work of God. God called you, Paul says, through
our gospel. because He chose you, therefore
He called you, He has already justified you, and you are His."
Now I don't know why this is such a troubling thing. 2 Thessalonians
is one of those texts that you can barely, barely ever find
a sermon on. At least that part. And when
you do, it's mixed up in there real far and real deep. But there's
an understanding, church. When we go through all these
letters, we have to continually study. We have to continually
read. Let me tell you what you do to
yourself when you don't continue to study that which we study
together each Lord's Day. You waste it. Here's your prescription. If
you take this every day for the next two years, you will never
have a problem. Take it for a month, throw it away. We have our pet devotions, we
have our pet times. Friends, put your study Bibles
up, turn off the YouTube, quit listening to sermons and read
your Bible. Quit trying to be the thesaurus
of theology. Quit trying to be the theological
dictionary and read the Word of God that will bring understanding
and life to your very soul. And when you read it, I can tell.
I can tell. Because the calls are
different, the emails are different, the text messages are different,
the visits are different. They're not despairing. They're testimonials. Oh, pastor, can I have a minute
of your time? Oh, the Lord is so good. I was
dead. I was worn out. I was withered.
I was in despair. And the Word of God showed me
and brought me and healed me and sealed me. And oh, what a
celebration. I just like to tell you about
it. Can you pray for me?" Absolutely, I can pray for you. Versus the
alternative. Well, we've all been both places,
right? Every day sometimes we're in both places. I mean, it's
not like, oh, this season of my life I was in... No, this
morning I was in despair, this afternoon I was praising God.
Circumstances haven't changed. The other part is, oh, what did
I need? I need to talk. Let's talk. I need to do this.
What can I do? Read the Bible. What are you reading right now
in Scripture? Well, I just haven't been to the Bible in six weeks! Six weeks! You're looking a little
spiritually thin there. I see your theology ribs. Put
some meat on. Eat. Get in the Word. Oh, I just don't understand because
you're not eating. We don't understand when we don't
eat. We don't enjoy good food if we don't eat it. We don't
enjoy the taste of something that we are not consuming. What
baby likes horseradish? I love it, man. Well, I know some babies that
like Tabasco sauce, but I mean, we have to have a palate for
it. Beloved, we need to be in the Word of God, desperately,
not devotedly. Well, it's 6 a.m., now I'm gonna
read. Great, do that. And if you can do that, great. But what most of us do, especially
us who are like, I don't know, chaotic people, Whereas you don't
know if you're going to get to the bathroom on time. You know
what I'm saying? Three hours later, you can't
walk. You've got what they call the movie theater bladder. When
you go to stand up after that gulp, that $17 thing, you can't
move. You go, oh my goodness, I didn't
know how to go to the bathroom because you weren't even thinking
about it because you were watching the show and you paid a gazillion
dollars to see it. So you're not going to miss any
of it. That's poor stewardship. That's what we do. What if our
life is like that? We don't even know if we're going
to have time to go brush our teeth, or comb our hair, or wash
clothes, or do anything. Oh, the oil light's been on for
six months. Well, it's just jiffy lube, but
jiffy lube's too slow. Okay? They need to get a little
more jiffy. I don't have time for that. You
know? What do we do? We need to be
desperate. We need to be desperate. We need
to be desperate to continue to rest in the faithfulness of God.
And the only way that rest is sufficient is when we hear the
words of God. We all want that shoulder to
cry on. We all want that person to lean on. We all want that
counsel to hear. But beloved, there is no counsel
that I can give you that's greater than what God is saying already. There's no counsel greater than
God's Word. There's a place for it. Friends,
good counsel puts us right back into that desperate position.
We are desperately in need of God's work and His faithfulness
continually. But we have learned that salvation,
because the world teaches us that salvation is a point in
history, a decision we've made. It's not a decision we've made,
it's a decision God has made. And it's not even a decision
God has made, it's a decree that God has said. There's a difference. God has not sat down and pondered
in his mind, whom shall I save? God has determined to save all
those who he has decreed. Who are they? I pray that you
hear the gospel today and believe on Christ. And if you are indeed in the
body of Christ and by faith alone, you indeed are the beloved. Let's
don't argue what God does not explain. But as the church, you
see, the difference is, is that we have seen the American church
feed unbelievers for so long. Listen to me, church. This is
not a place for an unbeliever to feel comfortable. This is
not a gathering for lost souls to come in and just be at ease. The church has never been that.
The church has never gathered as a people of lost folks. The
church is the gathering of the saints of God. And while we may
not know in that moment how the mysteries of God have brought
us to gospel, and what the Spirit of God has done in our hearts
to give us new life, and to grant us repentance, and grant us faith,
and grant us belief, as the church were to grow in that maturity,
you see. And when we gather on these days, it is so that as
we struggle and fight and work hard at salvation and with fear
and trembling, we stand in the sufficiency of God's faithfulness
in the gospel, not in what we can do to be faithful to Him.
And that's why so many congregations are inundated with a lot of people
who cannot get their lives to focus on the gospel because they've
never come to faith in Christ to begin with, and they're unbelievers
who are being called believers, and the answer to that in the
church of Jesus Christ in America is this creates something that'll
get them attached to something that'll keep them around. God calls through the hearing
of His Word, beloved, and God alone can give you ears to hear
it. And the purpose of Paul's writing
that is so that they would be encouraged. How does that encourage
me, you might ask? Because you cannot be thrown
away. Did you hear that? You cannot be thrown away. No
matter how insistent your flesh is to fight against the Lord,
no matter how hard life has pressed upon you, no one can snatch you
out of the hand of Christ. No one. Nothing. It is why so often that when
people gather to worship God, they would rather put the word
down to feel some type of emotion than to see and hear the truth. Because what is emotionalism
for? Just like drinking, smoking marijuana, eating sweets, watching Ben shows on Netflix
for 63 hours. It takes our mind off of it.
It numbs the reality of what we can't have and what we can't
fix and what we can't do. Why did God call us? See, that's
the point we're getting to. Why did God call us? What is
it that God is doing with His call? What's all this about?
It says it right there. To this He called you, verse
14, through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ. So that. And this is something
not preached on a lot. Because it sounds in some circles,
people hate it when I say things like that. God does not share
His glory, you better believe He doesn't. But He sure does
shine it through His people. See the difference? And so therefore we are glorious
in the sharing of the glory of Jesus Christ because we reflect
it. Where do you get that? Well, why is this What's the
meaning of this calling? Because God had a purpose in
such things. Because God is faithful, as I've
already said over and over and over again. Paul tells the first
Corinthians, God is faithful, by whom you were called into
the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. God is faithful
to call you, beloved. Are you hearing the call today? You believe on Christ alone? One of the most damning things
that I ever heard, I remember being 16, 17 years old, and being
an apologist, and hearing people constantly ask me at school,
and at work, and at other places, and even family members, well,
you know, how in the world would God accept me the way I live? He's not going to. He accepts
Christ the way Christ lived. And if you believe in Christ,
you're acceptable to God. Well, I just don't believe that.
I've got to stop drinking and cussing and smoking and dating
dirty women. I've got to get my life together. I've got to do this, I've got
to do that. Well, great! Hallelujah! I'm so glad you've
got New Year's resolutions. But they're not righteous resolutions. Believing on Jesus Christ is
the work of God. And we could clean up as much
as we want to in our own lives, and one of the problems we see
in our culture is that that's what people preach. They preach
repentance and faith in some type of order. Clean up, then
you can believe. How about you just believe? Just believe that Jesus is the
one who is righteous, and that if He did not take your sins
on Himself and give you His righteousness, then you are condemned right
now. If your trust is not in Christ,
if your belief is not in that truth, if your hope... It's all
one word that explains it, faith. And God, beloved, is faithful.
Even when we're faithless, He tells that to Timothy. In 2 Timothy
2.13, if we are faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot
deny Himself. So God is faithful. That's why
the call is effectual. God's faithful. No temptation
has ever overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted
beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide
the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. What is
the way of escape for temptation? the eternal life in Jesus Christ,
the spirit of sanctification, the truth of the gospel. We stand
firm, not in trying to get our lives clean, but, beloved, in
knowing that Christ is our righteousness. That just is too simple, people
say. I've had somebody tell me that
just this week. That's too simple. There's got
to be something else that I must do in order to be right with
God. No. And everything you try pushes
you further and further away from the Lord. And surely as God is faithful,
all word to you has not been yes and no. God is faithful,
beloved, to send his gospel. God is faithful to save his people.
God is faithful to seal them in his spirit. God is faithful
to sanctify them in the spirit. God is faithful to secure them
in the sun. God is faithful. Why? Because
the ultimate end of God's faithfulness is the glory of himself. Here's a commentary that does
get people ruffled. God loves Himself more than anything
else in all the cosmos. What kind of God are you talking
about? I'm talking about a God that does everything at the pleasure
of His will for His own self-glory. And that is not hedonistic, and
that is not arrogance, and that is not narcissism. Because God
is worthy of such glory. He does it for His glory. And
we are the beneficiaries of God's glorification. Unworthy beneficiaries. God in His glorious redemption
of a people who are unworthy to be saved, God is glorified
in it. And beloved, we are amazed at
it. We love God because He's loved
us. We are thankful. Because God
not only gives us the eyes to believe, but in that faith, in
the faith that's granted us, He gives us true spiritual eyes
to see the depths of our depravity. He gives us true spiritual eyes
to see how deep our sinfulness goes. That even the most minute
of thoughts and feelings can give birth to great sin in the
heart. He is faithful to the ultimate
end of His glory. And that's why Paul says in Ephesians
chapter 1, to the praise of His glorious grace, over and over
again, three times Paul says that God's purpose in election
and God's purpose in salvation, God's purpose in the calling
of His people is to present them holy and blameless without blemish. spotless before Him because of
Jesus Christ, and that one day He will in turn be glorified
for all of eternity, and that a people that stand with Him
will be absolutely immutable in their sinlessness, and will
be like Jesus Christ when we see Him face to face, who is
the fullness of the glory of God. Our salvation is not just escape
of wrath, it's the glorious future of God bringing us to the perfection
of His command. Be holy, for I am holy and beloved. We will stand before God holy
one day because of what Christ has done. We have seen the glory of God
as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. from
Moses who received the law, from God, from Jesus Christ who received
grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace. We shall be like Him. Jesus is
the visible image of the invisible God, the exact imprint of His
nature. Everything that God is, Jesus perfectly displays. The
glory of God is seen face to face. That's 2 Corinthians 4,
verse 6. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness,
has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Brothers and
sisters, just like the writer of Hebrews would say, we have
not come to what cannot be touched. We have not come to the tempest.
We do not stand in the presence of God cowering in hiding. We
do not come to the place where we bear not hear another word
from God. For when our father speaks to
us through his word, we are overwhelmed with affection because we hear
his voice as a voice of a father who loves his children and that
everything that we encounter is a preparation for our glory.
You see that? Paul says it very clearly, 2
Corinthians 4, for this light moment. Go there real quick.
Let's just read it. 2 Corinthians 4. I won't read the whole chapter,
but I should. Yes, I am. Therefore, having this ministry
by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. but we have renounced
disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning
or to tamper with God's Word, but by the direct, open statement
of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience
in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled,
it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case,
the God of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers to keep
them from seeing the light of the gospel in the face of Jesus
Christ and the glory of God." I'm sorry. who is the image of
God. For what we proclaim is not of ourselves, but Jesus Christ
as Lord with ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Christ.
For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in
our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure. in
jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God
and not to us. We are afflicted in every way,
but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.
Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life
of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live
are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that
the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the
same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believe
and so I spoke, we also believe and so we also speak, knowing
that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus
and bring us with You into His presence. For it is all for your
sake that as grace extends to more and more people, it may
increase thanksgiving to the glory of God." An expression
of that we've seen just in this second chapter of Thessalonians.
So we then do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting
away, our inner self is being renewed daily. day by day, for
this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things
that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things
that are seen are transient. They're moving away, but moving
on through. But the things that are unseen
are eternal. So see, beloved, we know that
this Glory that we've been saved to is ours, certainly. It is not for us to try to grasp
in this life, well, when is my life going to be glorious? It
is glorious if you're in Christ. And the suffering that we endure
in this life is glorious because it is preparation for an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison. Paul says in Romans, I don't,
what is it, Romans 8, 18, For I cannot compare these present
sufferings to the glory that I will once receive." That's
a paraphrase. That I will receive. There's no comparison. That's
not saying, I want to compare a piece of sand to Mount Everest. Or I want to compare a cardboard
box to the Alps. What is that? There is no suffering
in this life that throws us away from God. So we stand firm. And that's the whole argument
of this passage of Scripture. The very next verse in 15 talks
about stand firm then, therefore stand firm, stand firm, stand
firm by holding to the truth that we've taught you. So I could
say to you, stand firm in the sermons that you've just heard
in the last few weeks. Stand firm. That's the point. Stand firm in the truth of God's
Word. Stand firm in that which Paul taught the Thessalonians
through his mouth and taught to them through his letters.
Stand firm. Is that not the very thing that
Paul teaches the church of Ephesus when he says in Ephesians chapter
6, what does he say there? Stand firm. How? Because we have salvation, we
have hope, we have glory, we have grace, we have the peace
that comes through Jesus Christ, through His gospel. We stand
firm, we have truth, we have the righteousness of God in Christ,
and we have the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word, the
Rima of God, not Logos there, Rima. The pastor said a few months
ago in my hearing, we need to study the Word of God, we need
to study the Logos until it becomes the Rima. I just lost it. What's the difference? One is
just this Word that is Jesus. But when we hear the Word of
God, when it is spoken to our soul, we hear our Father. And it is hearing God's Word
and living in God's Word and teaching God's Word that effectually
fights off and allows us to stand. Fights off temptation. It is
the work of God, beloved. It is so simple. It sounds stupid. That's why people call Christians
foolish. Romans chapter 5 and then I'm
done. Listen to these words. Therefore, since we have been
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith
into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of
the glory of God. In other words, we are looking
forward to the glory of God in appearance, in presence. and
also in sharing. Not only that, but we rejoice
in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance
and endurance produces character and character produces hope and
hope does not put us to shame. It's not shameful, it's not stupid
church to hope in God's faithfulness. It's not stupid church to hope
in God's glorification of himself. And in the glorification of his
people. It sounds so silly. Well, I've got a home with Christ. I will be like Him one day. How
are you standing? Because God has done a work in
me that He will complete. He's faithful. You see that? You know the difference between
that and a five-point outline of some things you can stick
on your refrigerator and try to work in your own life? There's
power in what was just said to you. And when you go to the doctor
next week and he tells you you've got a month to live, you can live
in that. And when your children die in
front of you, you can live in that. When your marriage falls apart,
you can live in that. And the world hates you. When the beards
of the martyrs caught flame and they worship God, you can live
in that. You can live in it because God's
faithful. So all of this has been taught
to us so that we know we have a hope in Christ. We can stand
fast because God is the active and effectual caller of his people.
And the reason for this certainty is because God has chosen us
for himself from the beginning. This is election. It's what's
called predestination. It's salvation, beloved. At least
that's how Paul uses it. The effectuality of this calling
is enabled by God sending the gospel without fail to his people.
The preparedness of the standing before God is through holiness
and by faith. But the holiness and faith that
is in us is the work of God alone through the spirit and the word
with the hope of Jesus Christ. The end of all of this is God's
glory, which we shall share as his workmanship as we reflect
the power of his gospel. and the efficacy of his love
toward us in Jesus Christ. And one day, beloved, we will
stand before Christ and we will see visibly what we look to invisibly. One day we will come to the place
of glory. And as Peter says, God has called
you to his eternal glory in Christ. And I cannot imagine that day.
To stand with you in the presence of our king and how glorious
he will be. as we see Him forever, and how glorious each of us will
be in His presence. In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, be glorified in you and you in Him. 2 Thessalonians 1.12.
This is not the first time we've heard this sermon, and it will
not be the last. Beloved, are you at peace with
the faithfulness of God? Are you at peace? If you are not at peace, I pray
that God would give you eyes to see that the only peace you
can have is Jesus Christ. The only hope you can have is
Christ and the only way you can know him is through his word. Read and eat the living word
of God. unto your salvation and also
for your joy and ultimately for his glory that you shall share
in. Let's pray. What a glorious truth, Father. What a glorious truth. Of your love. of your power, of your intimacy with us. Lord, what glorious truth there
is in the teaching that Jesus Christ and his work is all we
need for salvation and for everything related to
salvation. Nothing more. In Christ alone. In Christ alone. Let it not be
a phrase of our generation, but let it be a truth of divine utterance. We pray these things in the name
of Jesus. Amen.