2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We're getting close to the end
of this letter. And after we finish this letter,
we are making preparations to begin a journey, a long journey
in John's Gospel. And when I say long journey,
I'm thinking five years. So it will be a very, very blessed
time for us. That doesn't mean we won't be
in other passages throughout those five years and we are planning
on trying to start a Sunday evening service occasionally so that
we can get some other things. But it's an important gospel,
all of them are important, but it is something that I believe
that now we are as a people ready to engage in something like that.
Second Thessalonians, last week and the week before, We've been
talking about what Paul has been teaching these Christians. In
the first letter we saw as a way of reminder that they were really
confused about the second coming of the Lord. They've been told
by others who had come into town and written letters or taught
on the street or whatever that Jesus had already returned and
the second coming had happened. But what we see in the second
letter is that Paul emphasizes the reality that if Jesus had
come, then the man of lawlessness, that is the devil, and all those
who follow him, those are unbelievers, would not be present in the world.
For the judgment of Jesus Christ is final and perfect. And so,
therefore, that as long as there is evil ones and, you know, Sin
and wickedness in the world, that means that Jesus has not
executed His righteous justice and judgment against the world,
so that we have nothing to fear. Last week, we saw the latter
part of that when we looked and saw the week before about how
to identify the so-called lawless one, that it is indeed the work
of Satan in the world. And so we're not to look and
read into scripture as we've been told to do over about the
last 85 years. We're not to read into scripture
about a an ultimate individual who would become an Antichrist.
As a matter of fact, Paul never mentions the term, neither does
John in the Apocalypse at the end of the New Testament. Not
one time does he mention anything about an individual being an
Antichrist. But in his first epistle, he says that there are
many Antichrists who have come to the world already, who are
in the world right now, and who will come. So, all of the things
that the Scripture teaches is for the purpose of the intent
that God decreed before the foundation of the world. God intended for
us to understand end times in this way, that until He comes
and sets everything under the feet of Jesus, that evil will
be the dominant existence in the world in which we live. that
we will struggle in our temptation against sin, but none of us will
struggle, according to Hebrews, to the point of death, or to
the point of shedding blood, because Jesus has suffered temptation
just like any other human being would, except that he did not
sin. The difference in what Jesus
did and what we do is that we will sin when tempted too much.
We will sin even in our temptation sometimes. because the desire
of our heart often is to do that which we're tempted to do. But
by the grace and mercy of God, through the Spirit of God, and
with His Word, and the life we live, God does give us the power
to overcome sin, even if the temptation continues to be a
part of our lives. When we saw last week that there
were two sets of people in the world, and those are the people
who are sealed by God with the Holy Spirit, who believe on Jesus
Christ, and the other set of people in the world is everybody
else. There are many of those, however, that we misalign and
think, well, these are our brothers and sisters in Christ. These
are those who, because they go to a church, they have a Bible,
they say the name of Jesus. Well, beloved, there are about
15 cults that I can think of right off the top of my head
who believe in the Jesus of the Bible according to their own
confession of faith. The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, you know them as Mormons. The Church of Jehovah's
Witness or Kingdom Hall, these people. And you say, well, they
aren't church. Well, the church means gathered ones. So we can gather,
we can be the church of guitars if we want to be. If we all gather
around and do guitars, we're the gathering of the guitars. But
the point is, is that there are many people even outside the
realm of cult or outside the realm of those who live a wicked
and sinful lifestyle that are still reprobate. And the idea
of reprobation is that God has decreed that some would perish
because of their unbelief and because of their sin. See, that's
why we perish. Do you know that, beloved? We
do not perish because we sin. We perish because we're sinners
and we sin because we're sinners. And if all of us were to get
our lives right about the age of two, today's Lepriska's birthday,
she's two years old, if she decided today, I'm never going to sin
again, and she walked perfectly with God, she would still be
condemned at the end of her life because God is righteous and
holy. Why? Because she's a human being.
And she's condemned because she has a sin nature. And unless
God, by His mercy, lets us hear the gospel, we're all condemned.
So it's not about not sinning. That doesn't make us right with
God. We cannot sin forever and still be found in the judgment
of God. And so what Paul is trying to teach these Thessalonians
is that is an inclusivity of those who are reprobate as many
who are among the local church. Many who are in the world in
which we live who claim to be in Christ. Many people who actually
are pastors who preach every morning or every Sunday or every
Lord's Day and teach. Many seminary professors. Friends,
we can learn the right information. I have a very good understanding
of quantum physics. I enjoy it. It's something crazy.
It's not a good thing to study when you're a little bit depressed.
But it is something I understand. And I could study that to such
a degree that I could act like a physicist. I could make you
think that I was. I could read enough peer journals
and things of that nature and medicine and make you think that
I was a medical doctor. I can do the same thing and make
you think that I'm a Christian, make you think that I'm a pastor
or a theologian. Just because we understand and
we know the truth and we can regurgitate material that we
believe does not make us right with God. The same way just because
we can walk in a Christian way does not make us right with God.
We are right with God because God in His mercy has given us
eyes to see and truly believe in Jesus Christ, which means
that Jesus not only is He God and created the world, but before
the world existed, He created the world in order to redeem
some for Himself. That's the whole point of the
narrative of the Bible, is that God has decreed and decided this
is how He's going to be glorified, and the redemption of a people
who could not be redeemed otherwise. And so Jesus Christ created a
woman named Mary, and all the history leading up to her genealogically,
and He created the womb inside of her, and He created the zygote
inside of her, and He is that zygote. so that Jesus created
the womb from which He was born and conceived the Holy Spirit.
He was all man and all God at the same time, never failing.
And then when He was born, He never sinned. He was tempted
to sin constantly, but He never sinned. He never disobeyed the
law of God. So therefore the command of God to be holy because
I am holy, He gave it to men. And He's given a command to do
that because He's God and He is sovereign over us and He is
right to do so. But brothers and sisters, we
cannot be holy. We could not obey if we obeyed
better than anybody. Jesus even said the obedience
of the Pharisees had to be matched and exceeded in order to see
the kingdom of heaven. In other words, if they, as Paul would
say, follow the law as a pretty good picture of following the
obedience of the law, but yet it was not unto righteousness.
We cannot do it. It is that Jesus Christ then
as a human being lived perfectly in this world and he obeyed God
at every turn as a toddler. Could you imagine that? What
does an obedient toddler look like? You have no idea. I've
never seen one. What does an obedient pre-adolescent look
like? What does an obedient teenager look like? Better yet, what does
an obedient 20-something look like, or a 30-something, or a
40-something, or a 50-something, or a so-and-so-something? What
does an obedient anybody look like? We don't know because we've
never seen one. Jesus perfectly obeyed God, therefore His earthly
righteousness, His earthly obedience is counted. is counted for ours. See, we're not getting the divine
holiness. That's a mistake. People think, oh, we're getting
the divine holiness. We're not God, for Pete's sake. Jesus became
man so that His righteousness would be worthy of a substitute
for humans, for humanity. Jesus Christ, because He's fully
man, obeyed God perfectly as a human. Therefore, we get the
righteousness and the obedience of Christ on our account. How
does that work? Because God, as I read out of
Romans 3 this morning at the beginning of our service, He
put Christ forward on the cross. See, God did the work of the
cross. That was the purpose before the world. When God said, let
there be light, that was His intention, that Christ would
be seen as the light of the world. That Christ would actually be
the man who obeyed Him perfectly, so that when God hanged Him on
the cross and killed Him, that His sacrifice would be worthy
in paying for my sin and your sin. Because if Jesus was not
a man, then Jesus is not a worthy sacrifice. So he replaced us
on earth and walked holy and we could not. And he replaced
us on the cross because he took a judgment that we couldn't pay.
And beloved, that's an that's an amazing love. That's an amazing
thing. And we don't really understand
all the mysteries that are not revealed to us, but what we are
given in Scripture is ours. And it's for us, and as the second
reading of the law in Deuteronomy 29, it's for us and for our generations
and for their generations. It's for us to know and to understand
and to comprehend. So when we try to intermingle,
where am I going with all this? I want to give the gospel and
then also tell you why it's important. When we see all these things
in our lives and we follow all these interesting and creative
teachings, we have taken God's Word as it was intended to be
understood and we have relegated it to a myth or a fable. And
we take to heart what men teach us because their platforms are
larger. You know why people's platforms are most of the time
larger? You know I said most of the time, not all the time?
It's because most people in the world want to hear things that
aren't true. Most people in the world want to hear what they
want to hear. I mean, I've seen people online
before talking about how they lost weight with the Krispy Kreme
diet. That's a joke. But they really believe it. And
there are people that are going out and trying it. And there are people that
go, why? Because they want to eat Krispy Kremes. You know, I've
seen people go out and, you know, I'm on the cabbage diet or the
juice diet or this diet or that diet. You ever seen those things?
These are fad diets. And they may work to an extent. But ultimately
what happens is, is that the people who stick to that, that's
what they want. That's what their palate desires. And so they'll
stick with that way of eating. My beloved, the world has a palate
that caters to their flesh. And so the gospel of the devil
is used not from the cults as much as we think, but from the
pulpits of churches, from Christian gatherings, from people who claim
the name of the Christ of this Bible. And the devil uses this
to feed them just enough of the truth to make them come and say,
okay, this isn't heresy, but then enough of a lie to make
their bodies and their flesh and their minds stick around.
What's that look like? It sort of looks like the man-centered
gospel. This gospel that tells us that,
you know, it's all about us. I mean, if there's nothing in
this world that makes us feel good, it's when somebody says,
you know what? You're the greatest thing in the world. You're the
greatest thing in the world. Because we agree with that in
our flesh, don't we? And I love you more than anything
else in this world because you're so great. That's what the devil
says. And that's what the devil told
Adam and Eve, and that's what the devil told Jesus, and that's
what the devil's telling us. This man-centered gospel is no
gospel at all, but according to Paul in Galatians, it's anathemas.
That means to be cut off forever from Christ. So if we're cut
off forever from Christ, we're not in Christ. Well, it's about
you, it's about your mind, and about your hope, and about your
joy, and all this kind of thing. God wants you to be happy. You
know, that is a true statement, but the difference is, is what
does the Scripture teach us about our happiness? The Scripture
teaches us that we are in Christ are sufficiently joyful, even
in the midst of pain, to the point when our joy is inexpressible,
we are satisfied. But the alternative of that,
that's preached very close to our proximity around here, is
that God wants you to be happy in the world that you live in,
so whatever you think you need to be happy, money, health, livelihood,
good job, power, prestige, that's in direct violation of what John
prohibits in the command of 1 John 2, 15, 16, and 17. Do not love the world. Do not
love the things of the world. Do not love the pride of life,
the lust of the eyes, the pride of possessions, the love of money.
Do not love these things. For these things are not of the
Lord, but are of the world, and the world and everything in it
is a bunch of rotted meat already decaying and passing away. And
those who love these things, the love of God, John says, is
not in them. It's not in them. There's nothing
greater than to feel like to be convicted of sin in our life.
And all of a sudden, somebody come along with a little bit
of a twist of scripture and say, hey, you know what? It's OK. It's OK, because, you know. This is what God, He understands
and He wants you to be happy, so don't worry about that. Don't
worry about your sexual immorality. Don't worry about your greed.
Don't worry about your bigotry. People will say those things. And they
preach it from pulpits and they preach it out of context to make
the masses gather. What better congregation to have
than to buy the lie, sorry guys, I'm just not with it all this
morning, to buy the lie that God wants you wealthy. And if
you wanna be wealthy, then you gotta give the little bit of
wealth you have to me, I meant to God. You see how that works?
Let's take up five or six offerings. And then if you do that and you
really, really, really, really, really believe, then God is going
to give you an abundance, maybe tenfold, maybe a hundredfold
of what you put in. I don't know about you, I'd rather keep my
ten dollars than try a gamble to get a hundred. I don't understand
that. But that appeals to people. And
it appeals mostly the same way that the lottery appeals to mostly
people who are impoverished who can't afford to do the gamble
anyway. Yet why people get richer and richer off the backs of Jesus
and off the backs of the gospel, or a so-called gospel, if you
will. And when you're looking at the text here, I say all that
to say that there is a spiritual war at hand. And as we looked
at the reprobate last week, it's a very difficult doctrine. I
had some of you come and talk to me throughout the week and
how do I really reconcile this? You mean God seals people for
destruction? Absolutely. He seals people for
destruction and there is no way they can be saved. Period. Well, when does that happen?
I told y'all at the end of last week's sermon, we don't know.
So we best not be coy about it. God does shut the doors in the
eyes and the hearts of people. He seals them for destruction
and He is right in doing so. Beloved, He would be right to
seal every one of us for destruction this day and He would be worthy
of all worship by all heavens and all the earth to destroy
each and every one of us. But because He loves us, He gave
Christ in our stay. So we are sealed. But there's
a spiritual battle going on. And if you don't see it, if you
don't notice it, maybe I'll help you see how it looks a little
bit. Ephesians 6 is not just some mythological expression
of Paul's suffering. He's not just trying to say,
well, because I'm suffering so much that there's this boogeyman
named the devil. Listen, Satan is real. Lucifer is a real angel
created by God and purposed by God before eternity to fall that
he might be glorified in his destruction. And he might be
glorified in his ending. How do we know what spiritual
warfare looks like? We should pay attention to what
we think. We should pay attention to what we think and what we
feel, and we should filter them through the truths of the Scripture. We should understand that not
everything we think of and not everything we feel is right. Matter of fact, I would say the
majority of it is not right so that we have to take every thought
captive, take every word, arrest everything that we consider and
ask ourselves, is this really of the Lord Jesus? For it is
not of the Lord Jesus and his word. It is not of the spirit
of truth. And if it's not of the spirit of truth, beloved,
it's of the spirit of the enemy. And the spirit of the enemy does
tempt us to think. It's not always about diving
into the cesspool of sinfulness. Sometimes it's just about diving
into the cesspool of depression or the cesspool of being bothered
or the cesspool of aggravation, the cesspool or whatever it might
be. We cannot let our thoughts and feelings speak to us truth
because God's word is truth, not our feelings. Spiritual warfare
is at hand and we should know that when we are offended oftentimes
by each other or bothered, it could be, now listen, I say could,
not that it is always, but it could be that we're listening
to the liar, to the father of lies. It could be, you know,
what'd you look at me like that for? You ever had that? I mean,
just this week, we saw someone in town and they were very, very
cold toward us. And my first desire, and Rob and I talk about
it, I mean, it's like, wow, it really makes you mad and then
it hurts you. How dare you roll your eyes at me? You know who
I am? Nobody. What do we do? But we can't let those types
of things arrest our hearts and put us in a place of sin. The
truth is that if we desire to live a godly life, we're going
to be persecuted, we're going to be hated. We're going to be hated because
we want to gather together and love on each other. We're going
to be hated because we'd rather pray for each other than fight.
What do you mean? You know, when people pick fights
and you sling dirt in their face and they sling dirt in your face,
we're all on the same plane. We're all candidates for Jerry
Springer and we're all ready to go. And everybody feels equal. But the tabloid syndrome that
I like to call it, it's like you're at the checkout at the
grocery and you see all these magazines about how bad everybody
is and what all the wicked stuff that they're finding out and
the paparazzi's uncovering for all the... Because when we see
people elevated to a status in society, it makes us feel good
in our sinful heart to see them fall because it puts us on the
same plane. Well, look at there, they put
their shoes on the same way we do and they wipe their rear ends the same
way. Huh, they're not so special. If that's true about what celebrities,
how we feel about people who are in celebrity status, how
much more do people hate us because we are the righteousness of God? There's a spiritual war at hand
and everything we see and hear is an opportunity to be dragged
into something that doesn't honor the Lord. Everything, whether
it be politics, whether it be CNN or Fox News or whatever it
might be. Even if it's good, maybe it's
a Christian guy, you know, like, like, like, Southern's president
who gets on and does a little commentary. I mean, there's some
good stuff. But even those things that are good, even what I say
to you this morning, there could be a way that the enemy could
twist it to make us try to dive into something. For example,
like Abolish Human Abortion. That's an organization that's
not an organization. It's a people that's not a people. And I do
believe that abortion is a wicked existence. It is one of the largest
signs of God's judgment against our world, that people murder
the unborn children. of our world in the count, get
this, 2,100 a week on average. Tens of billions of dollars of
profit a year are made in the abortion mill industry. And some
Christians really get passionate about that. What are we to do?
We need to pray about that. We need to pray that God would
stay His hand of judgment and that He would turn that around.
But friends, there's no politicians that's going to help it. There's
no, there's no governance going to help it. There's nothing until
God changes it. And he may not ever, because
we know that God allows people to do things that are wicked
so that he is even more righteous in his justice. That's what the
scripture teaches us. But AHA, this organization, they
say they're an organization, they're so passionate about it,
now they're not even going to the abortion meals, they're going
to the churches of our nation. And they're standing out in front
of the churches and they're saying, repent church, repent church,
because you are apathetic or blind or ignoring. I had a good
opportunity in Atlanta a couple of months back to speak with
some of these people. And I asked the question, what
do you want me to do as a pastor to get my church more engaged
and out of the apathetic position when it comes to abortion? I
don't know. Change, change, change. What
do you want us to do? I don't know. I tell you what we can do, we
can always be in prayer about it. We can always make it top of
mind awareness. We can always know that Brother Jesse most
Fridays goes down to the one abortion clinic we have in our
area and preaches the gospel and often times God changes hearts
and brings salvation to these people. At least temporarily,
that they will leave that place and come out and get counsel.
We can't save everybody. By golly, we can do that. What's
the point in that? That's what I'm talking about. Sometimes
we get these opportunities, we hear something, we get dragged
into something that doesn't honor the Lord at all. When we forsake
that which we're called to do and commanded to do by God for
something that's good, is the good better than the command?
No. So we've got to be very careful
not to forsake what God has called us to be as a people for a good
cause. Because a good cause is no cause
at all if it's not the gospel of Jesus. Doctrinal errors, desires for
worldly peace between us, a false sense of security, all these
things give away the temptation and the word of Satan is always
at work. He works, however, at the whim of God's eternal decrees.
And many people, as I talked last week, will be deceived and
many more will be confused. But God's people will never be
lost, beloved. We who are in Christ, though
we may get confused sometimes, we will come to the knowledge
of the truth. We will stay in the presence of God's grace.
We will be held all the time by the hand of the Lord. God
will not lose any who are found in Christ Jesus. Now the question
then is, are you in Christ Jesus? Are you in Christ this morning?
I find it very interesting in the years that I've been in ministry
and the seasons of my ministry, you know, I'm a zealot here on
this issue, and I'm a zealot here on this issue, and I'm a
zealot here on this issue, and I'm a zealot here on this issue,
and I look at all these last two decades and I think, man,
if I just stayed to the center of something, how much more productive
would I have been? But what is it that the church
should stay to the center of? What gospel centrality? The centrality
of Jesus. Oh, that sounds good, but what
does that mean? Well, any of you who follow my Facebook feed,
you'll know that there's a gentleman by the name of, I won't even
say his name, but it starts with a J. And he really got upset about
the fact that I suppose that scripture is the sole source
of revelation for God and for the gospel. So I just tagged
a few friends and they jumped in on the conversation and it
got very, very bad. It got very ugly. And the realization
of what this man believes is that the word of God is not to
be trusted. And so I think about that. Most
of the error found in the world today is because of the failure
to uphold the authority and the sufficiency of Scripture. We
see Sola Scriptura sitting on our wall. We hear it sometimes,
the Word of God alone, the Word of God alone, but yet many times
in our society, and I don't believe you, Grace Truth, do this, but
in the past, in the ministries that I've been a part of, many
people are just inundated with the books and the movies and
the Christianese and all the stuff that happens. And let me
tell you something, folks, it's not beneficial for us. It's not
beneficial for us to go see a movie about Christian things and say,
wow, that really just motivated me to love the Lord. If a movie
motivates us to love the Lord more than the Bible motivates
to love the Lord, then maybe the Lord we're motivated to love
is not the Lord of the Bible, but is the Lord of Satan. Maybe
it's a false gospel. Listen, there's nothing wrong
with watching a show or reading a book. But friends, understand
the difference between fiction and divine authority. And do
not mix up the two. The simple context of Scripture
teaches clearly that all we need to know about God and Jesus and
salvation in the church is found in the authority of the text
of Scripture. Yes, God is a God of a book. We don't put God in
a box, He put Himself in a book. And I can worship this Bible
and make an idol of it because I like it, and it smells good,
and it looks nice, and it feels good in my hands, and the text
is pretty clear, and the pages are white, and it's really nice,
but it is nothing to be worshipped except the paper and the cowhide.
But the text within is the God of heaven. God speaks to us and
reveals Himself through the words of this book. And people would
say that that's Bible worship. Well, then I'm worshiping the
Bible. And it might seem ridiculous
to you, but hundreds of people just this week have been confused
on that very conversation. Well, maybe I do need to think
about other ways of knowing God. Without Scripture, we can know
nothing, though. According to Scripture itself says that without
the Word, there's nothing for us to know. Even Peter would
say that we were eyewitnesses to His Majesty. We beheld, we
heard the voice of God who said, this is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. You would do very well to listen
to our testimony. We didn't make this up as myths
and devise them very cleverly to trick you. We saw the transfiguration. We saw Jesus Christ ascend to
the Father. We saw it! But guess what? He said, but there's a better
word and something more secure than what we saw. And that is
the prophets of the Old Testament. So even Peter, the apostles,
did not point to their own observation and experiences, but rather the
word of God. Jesus himself said the same thing to the Pharisees
in John's gospel. You know, we don't know who you
are. Who do you come to? How do you have the authority?
How do you testify about yourself? He says, listen, the Word of
God testifies about me. So Jesus subjected Himself and
the reality of His own authority to the Father through the Scriptures. So without the Scriptures, what
do we have? Nothing. Nothing. Many people have embraced
a liberalism this day that moves scripture to the sidelines of
knowledge and revelation as just a tool for us to learn life's
lessons. Some have embraced a blasphemous position of accusing those, as
I've already said, who hold a high view of scripture as Bible worshipers.
Beloved, these people are reprobate and sealed for destruction. To
reject the Scripture is to reject God Himself. To reject the Bible
is to reject salvation through Jesus Christ. To reject Scripture
is to reject all authority and all knowledge and all truth.
Jesus is the Living Word. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. And the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen the glory. Glory
is the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. And
friends, if we don't understand that Hebrews 1 teaches that God
in many ways and many times spoke to us through our forefathers,
through the prophets, but in these last days He speaks to
us through His Son. In Romans 10, Paul makes the argument that
no one can come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Therefore, according
to John 17 3, no one can have eternal life, for eternal life
is knowing God and the Son whom you have sent. No one can come
to the knowledge and the salvation of Jesus Christ except that they
hear the words of Christ and those words have been archived
and printed and produced and sent out and assimilated by the
apostles who wrote the New Testament. So it is only through the writing
of the Word of God that we can have eternal life. You cannot
experience God in any other way but His Word. You cannot experience
Him through osmosis. You cannot experience Him through
movement. You cannot experience Him through feeling. You cannot
experience Him through thought, except that those thoughts are
from God's Word and they are fed and the foundation of God's
Word. Now, what is our security then? That's the text today. What is
our security? Where do we come to this? Because
we saw the reprobate. We saw all these things and it's
a scary position. And then Brother Luke got up
and shared about his struggle, how he almost gave up, but that
God was gracious to him to seal him and to hold him. And he said
these words. He thought I was preaching that text last week.
So he was sort of building his discussion on that, that we ought
to stand firm. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2, verse
13. Let's read it. But we ought always to give thanks
to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose
you 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. 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 the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal
comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and
establish them in every good work and word. Now, you see that. And some of you are looking at
me going, well, that translation says something about firstfruits.
Well, I suppose to you that the context of this should say from
the beginning, not firstfruits. And those of you who care to
know, it's a difference between a space in a Greek word, in no
space. But either way, we know that
God has chosen us from the beginning, and I will show you that this
morning. The love of God drives us to
be thankful. And many times in Paul's writings,
we see we ought to always give thanks. We saw it in the first
epistle. We saw it in the first part of this letter. We see that
all the time where Paul is. We ought to give thanks. It's
an imperative. We are thankful in our hearts. And thanksgiving,
returns to God in such a way that many more people are saved
through it, because when we're grateful for something, we express
it, we share it, and God, in the sharing of the gospel, then
brings others to faith, and then when others come to faith, they're
thankful to God, and then God is getting all the glory and
all the praise and all the honor and everything that He's due,
because He's worthy of it all. God is glorified in the praise
of His people, and the praise to the Lord, friends, is seen
most clearly in our gratitude toward Him, in our thankfulness.
That's why Paul can very clearly say, do all things without grumbling
or complaining. All things. Because that's the
opposite of thanksgiving, is complaining and grumbling, being
bitter and frustrated. And it's so easy, is it not?
Like the old Calvinist scowl that you see. Frozen, chosen. Just, I love God, you better
love Him too. Who wants to see that? But in
this text right here, we see Paul, because of what he knows,
because of what The gospel is he is thankful and he's praising
the Lord because the work of God through Jesus Christ is so
evident in the lives of the Thessalonians that there is no mistake. They've
received, as we saw in the first letter, the gospel, the word
with power and with the spirit. Think about this for a second,
though. Look what he says there. He says, we ought to always give
thanks to you, to God for you. Those who are beloved by God,
you are our brothers who are beloved by God. What does it
mean to be beloved? I use the term all the time, Pastor Jesse
uses it a lot too. That means you are loved ones, you are the
loved ones. So here are the brothers who are loved by God. Listen,
this is another sermon in itself, but I'll just say this. God's
love never began for you. God didn't see you receive something
He offered and go, I love them now." God's love was before you
were. It's a powerful thing. That means
that when God said, let there be light to date, to the cross
and to date and forever, that God purposed to effectually work
His redemptive plan for you because He loves you to the praise of
His glorious grace. It's all about God, not us. But
there is an amazing love that God has for us. Because without
God's love on us, if God loves anyone, they will be saved in
Jesus Christ. You might say, oh, whoa, whoa.
Are you talking about God hates some people? Well, the Bible
says that God hates some people. No, no, no, no, no. God hates
the sin and loves the sinner. I've never seen a bag of lies. I've never seen a case of murder.
But I've seen a lot of liars and a lot of murderers. And in
judgment, God's not going to take the murder and kill it and
destroy it. He's going to put the murderer
in there. But I can argue that there is some sort of providential
love in some way that we don't grasp in judgment against the
reprobate because it's loving for God to bring justice against
wickedness. It's wicked to let evil run free. God's love for us. The Bible
says that God is love, and we love God because God first loved
us. God's love is then demonstrated
in this. What does Scripture say? In that
while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So God loves
us. He first loved us. He is love.
And God's love is demonstrated because He died for us while
we were His enemies. God's love is seen, according
to John 3, in the giving of the Son. God loved the world in this
way, that He gave the only Son that He had, that whoever is
believing in Him has eternal life and will not perish, but
those who are not believing in Him are condemned already. It is the love of God that effectuates,
according to Ephesians chapter 2, the grace and mercy of God
on our behalf. Because of the great love with
which He loved us, He gave us eternal life in Christ Jesus.
It's a gift of God for those who are the beloved. Don't ever
forget that it is the love of God that is effectual for you.
And that's so hard because we've heard for so long that everybody
just likes to stand out there and tell every single person
in the world, God loves you, God loves you, God loves you.
God loves you in this way, beloved, that he sent his son to take
your judgment. Let's not put God's love in the
same vein that we put our love. I love pizza. I love puppies.
I love potato chips. That's not love. I love my children. That's not love compared to what
God, God's love. It's not love. There's no greater
love than this, than a man would lay down his life for a brother.
The irony of that is that we were not brothers and sisters
to Christ. We were enemies. But because
God had decreed to save us before the foundations of the world,
we were brothers and sisters already. The love of God is even
more beautiful than most of us could ever understand. And I
believe that this verse in this New Testament text of 2 Thessalonians
2 is one of the most beautiful pictures of the love of God that
ever exists in the New Testament. And it should produce such a
joy that it would just break us.
I want to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by
the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning. Here says
as first fruits, just change it in your mind from the beginning. To be saved. Aparchy. From the beginning,
God chose you. The word there for chose is in
the middle voice in the Greek New Testament. And what it means
is that the person doing the action does it for the sake of
himself. So if we want to translate this, then why does it translate
like this? Because word for word translation is better than thought
for thought. So we have to dig there and we
think, what does that mean? We dig, we look, and we go back.
And I have time to do it. You may not. When we go back
and we look and we can read this this way. Brothers, beloved by
the Lord, because God chose you for himself from the beginning.
That's what it means. From the beginning, God chose
you for himself. God in his love. Elected you. Why is this such a horrible truth? I don't get it. Brother Dalkor,
friend of mine from L.A., Christian Defense Ministries, he said,
and he might have posted on Facebook, but he said, you know, election
is one of these things that nobody wants to deal with. It's like
the drunk relative. Nobody wants to confront him
and nobody wants to talk about it, but they'd rather ignore
him. Friends, you can't ignore it. You can't ignore that God's
love is seen in his election of his people. Because he's commanded
us to do what cannot be done. He's commanded us to believe
what cannot be seen. He's commanded us to come to something that
cannot be touched. Look at the rest of this text,
God chose you for himself from the beginning to be saved. to be saved for salvation, to
be saved. So what did he choose us for?
Salvation. So that God, in His sovereign
decree, has chosen to save His people for Himself from the beginning. There's no greater place to see
that. It's a lot of places. It's a
lot of places. But friends, that is strong.
God did not choose us hoping we would be saved. God did not
choose to express the gospel to us that we might be saved.
God chose to save us, ergo we are saved. You mean, when I fail and doubt,
I'm saved? Yes, because Christ is faithful.
When I sin, I'm still a Christian? Absolutely. For all your sins
have been nailed to the cross of Christ. And in His body, He
has made redemption through His blood. There is no walk and work
of man that can execute God's love for you and bring it upon
you. There is nothing that pleases
God about how we live our lives. Do all things in word and deed
to the glory of God. How do we do that, beloved? How
do we stand in the midst of some of this stuff? See, the error
of what the devil does is he teaches us to work so hard that
we actually begin to put hope in our work. And do you know
what that is? Condemnation. Condemnation when
we put hope in our work. If I could just get right, if
you could just get right, you'd be God. And when we think we're
right, we're blind. Oh, so should I just live like
a hellion and do what I want to do? Why would you do that?
The love of God on you that He gave Christ to suffer in your
place again for your sin? Why would we want to suffer Christ
on the cross? That's what Hebrews says. We
continue in sin and we just say to heck with it. We'll just do
what we want to do. Why do we not continue in sin? Because
God has decreed that we wouldn't. But even when we don't continue
in sin, we're still in sin. Because our righteousness is
not our own. All the great righteous works of James Diffens are filthy
before the Lord God. Every sermon, good and bad, every
thought, every deed, every writing, everything that's ever been done
is nothing that will warrant God's affection for me, nothing
that will give Him a pleasant aroma in His nose to say, wow,
man, I'm so glad He came to salvation. What a wonderful person that
I have now in my team. God has never said that about
a soul. In fact, God's Word says that He uses the lowly things,
the despised things, the nothings of the world. So we who are extremely
good and awesome and worthy in some sense, friends, there's
not really a whole lot to look forward to. Where does God get
glory in our ability? He doesn't. God gets glory in
that in the beginning, before we existed, God loved us, and
in His love, He purposed to save us, therefore we are saved, because
God chose us for Himself, from the beginning, for salvation.
Look at this. Through sanctification by the
Spirit and belief in truth. So this tells us what God has
done. God has chosen us to be sanctified by the Spirit and
to believe in the truth. So now we can see what Paul says
in Ephesians chapter 2. For by grace you have been saved
through faith and this is not of your own doing. It's not of
your own doing, it's a gift of God. In Romans chapter 3, it
is a gift of God. Faith is a gift of God. The work
of believing is the work of God. Beloved, we cannot sit here and
be proudful and proudful and proud that we have the right
understanding of God's word, that we have the right understanding
of the gospel. Please don't be proud, be thankful. It's a big
difference. I am thankful that God has opened
my eyes to see the truth. I am thankful that God put His
Spirit in me. I am thankful that God allowed me to see that the
work of my hands and the walk of my own righteousness would
not affect Him and affect His love toward me. I am thankful
that my sins are forgiven before the foundations of the world.
I am thankful that the means of my justification legally is
the decree of God to say that I am guiltless. I am thankful
that God put forward Christ's propitiation to satisfy His wrath
against me. I am thankful that His good news
is effectual in me. O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,
for if it were not for Your love toward me, I would be condemned,
and rightly so." See, that's salvation. If I ever did an altar
call like that, people would run. But that's the call, isn't
it? To believe on Christ that way.
For there is no other Christ. Through sanctification, see the
work here that we see by the Spirit and the belief in the
truth is all the work of God and salvation before the foundation
of the world. This work is all of God because
He chose them. He chose us that they would believe,
that they would be set apart and sanctified, that they would
be holy, ultimately in Jesus Christ and in glorification,
we shall be like Him. First Thessalonians 5, remember
the prayer that God prays, says, Now may the God of peace himself
sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and
body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
See, the work of God is always effectual in us, beloved. And
when we find ourselves unable to stand, what we must do is
what is taught here in this text. In verse 14 it says, "...to this
He called you through our gospel." How do we know that we're in
this love? How do we know that we're in
this calling? Because the gospel calls you. The apostles went
and preached, there is a God in heaven, holy and just, and
righteous to bring recompense and wrath and vengeance upon
all the wickedness of men. And you, dear friends, in your
sin are worthy of judgment. But this same God purposed to
become a man, and sent Jesus Christ His Son, that He would
live wholly in the eyes of God. And then He gave Himself willfully
to the cross, and the Son of God was crucified so that you
could escape the wrath of God. Then He was raised from the dead
and vindicated and sat to the right side of the Father, and
He propitiates for us as our High Priest this very day and
advocates for us that none of the elect of God shall perish,
but that all would come to faith in Jesus Christ. For that is
the desire of God, that none of you should perish, but that
all should come to the knowledge of grace." And we preach it through
this gospel. And you were called through this
gospel. You did not come to God. God came to you through His gospel. See, that's what Paul's saying
right there. God reached down and snatched you. That's the
language Paul uses. Out of the domain of darkness.
He snatched you out of death. He snatched you out of depravity.
He snatched you out of wrath. He snatched you out of judgment.
Why? Because Christ paid for the cost of it. Well, why did He do that? So
that we may, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh gosh, how I just, should probably
just preach that for an hour. So that you, I'm gonna do that
next week, I'm gonna come back here. That you may obtain the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. See, that's the outcome. God
has saved us that we may be glorified in Christ. He's called us. Chosen us, called
us, redeemed us, purchased us, bought us, saved us, sanctified
us, and he will glorify us one day. That's the end of it all.
In Paul's letter to the Corinthians, the second letter, for all this
light momentary affliction prepares us for an internal weight of
glory without comparison. as we look to the things that
are unseen, not the things that are seen. See, God is going to
allow us to share in the glory of Christ. That's next week's
sermon. So then verse 15, we'll just
keep moving, it'll take too long. Brothers, stand firm. Because
of this, because of God's love, because of God's work, because
of God's decree, because of God's power, because of God's gospel,
because of God's Son, You who are the objects of His divine
mercy, His kindness, and His divine love, stand firm and hold
to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken
word or by our letter. See, standing firm is one of
the most difficult things that we learn to do as Christians.
You know why? Because that little natural man
and woman that still resides within our flesh comes and taps
us on the shoulder and says, you know what you've got to do
in order to stand firm? You have got to come to the place
where you are doing some good stuff for God. You've got to
come to a place where you're striving and working and doing.
You need to get up and dedicate your life to Jesus every second.
And you need to stand tall and put this sin away. And see, that
sounds biblical, doesn't it? But it's partially true. Paul
says to put the old man to death. Paul says to flee sexual immorality.
Paul says to turn away temptation. Paul says to flee the devil and
he will resist the devil. All these things that we see
in the New Testament. Love your neighbor. Love the
Lord. Give glory and honor to Him. Serve one another. Forgive
one another. Teach one another. Speak the
truth in love. All these things. And you know
what we do? We do a good job at preparing ourselves to get
ready to do a good job. But we never really do a good
job, do we? I mean, be honest. How many of us really feel like,
man, we have got our sin under control? Come testify. No takers. You know why? Because it's not.
It's not under control, it's been killed. It's been paid for. It's been nailed to the cross
of Christ. Christ has taken it. So in the midst of this suffering,
friends, we stand firm. It's the most difficult, but
it is enabled through the gospel that you have been called through
the power of God. See, he holds us fast. Be a good
song to sing, wouldn't it? He holds us fast. We cannot let
go of God because we are not holding on to him, really. He's
holding on to us. And though we may have Him today
and tomorrow and be like, oh no, I've lost my grip. We're
not going anywhere, beloved. That's how we stand firm. We
stand firm in what God has done in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
How do we do that? We remember, we hold fast and
stand fast by remembering and believing in the truth of Jesus
Christ. Really? Yes. Stand firm, hold
to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by spoken
word or by letter. We don't know what all they said
by spoken word, but we've got enough letters to know that that's
what they taught by spoken word. We're not missing anything. The
book of standing firm is not gone from Scripture. It's all
throughout the New Testament writing. So we're looking and
we're seeing that holding fast, first and foremost, is to hold
to what the apostles have taught us about who Christ is and what
He's done. And in the midst of our failings,
in the midst of our struggle, in the midst of our fear, we
hold fast to the truth of Jesus Christ that says God loved us
before the beginning of the world and He gave us salvation in Jesus
Christ. Why is that so difficult? You
know why? Because there's nothing in our
lives that's glorified by it. There's nothing there. There's
nothing inside of us that gets the credit for it. That's why
it's difficult, because we think that we have to hold to what
is visible. But we look to that which is
unseen, not that which is seen. We look to that which cannot
be seen, not to what we can do in our lives. Do we do things?
Yes. Do we see fruit? Absolutely.
Are we obedient? Yes. But why? Because God works that in us.
It's easy to obey when things are good. It's hard to obey when
things are not good. Unbelievers obey God sometimes. But yet they don't. Because obedience
by definition is perfection. Did you realize that? If I obey
today and then disobey tonight, am I obedient or disobedient?
I'm disobedient. So never am I ever obedient to
the Lord. So where's my hope? In the gospel of Jesus. In the
gospel of Jesus. Hold fast. Hold to what the apostles
have taught. In their speech by the written
word. See why the reprobate must ignore the scripture? You see why those who God has
decreed to Condemn must be turned over to reprobation. They must
ignore the scripture. False teaching must come in.
Unbelief must settle. They reject the truth of scripture,
therefore it's taken away from them. But for us, beloved, we
hold to it. Listen, Sola Scriptura is not
just a historical marker. It is by sense. I have to be
careful how I say this, and if I say it incorrectly, I'll fix
it next week. But I believe that Sola Scriptura by sense is the
foundation through which eternal life is established. Well, it's
not in the Bible. No, it's not in the Bible. It's
a Latin phrase, for Pete's sake. But the point is, You search
the Scriptures, Jesus says, for eternal life, but you do not
find them, for they speak of Me. If you knew Moses and you knew
what he was teaching, you'd know it was about Me. Moses wrote
of Me. Get out of it. Pharisees, that's
what Jesus is saying. What is supposed to be seen?
Why couldn't they see Isaiah 6? God would not allow them to
see it. Reprobate. He blinded their eyes. Second
Corinthians chapter four. If our gospel is veiled as veiled,
only those who are perishing for the God of this world blinds
the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God. But God who said that light shone
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. From
the scripture, we hold fast to Christ, the confession of our
hope because he is faithful. And verse 16 and 17 comes to
a place where if we're not careful, we'll start
to think, OK, now this is what we do. What we do is we hold
fast to the Word of God, to the gospel of Christ. That's what
standing firm means. Well, if I'm tempted, what do
I do? How do I fight that temptation?
Remember the cross. That's standing fast. Man, if
I do that, Christ paid for that. I'm not a slave to that because
Christ set me free. The Son sets us free. Hope fast. Verse 16 and 17. Paul prays here. He prays. Now may our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal
comfort and good hope through grace. Comfort your hearts and
establish them in every good work and word." So where is the
power to stand? Ephesians 6, it tells us already,
we've already been there. We stand in the power of God through
the gospel, through His Word. Nothing can shake us out of that.
It may feel like the whole world is falling down, but friends,
This prayer is a prayer of petition. And something very interesting,
you may not notice it because you don't, you just, you just
may not notice it because you don't read a lot of the epistles
together. But everywhere where Paul writes God the Father and
our Lord Jesus Christ, it's always in that order. God the Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, the Lord Jesus Christ is
first. And then God the Father is second.
And then there's identifier of what God the Father has done
and who he is. Look at it. May the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself, so it's emphasizing the work of Jesus, going to do
something, skip on down, verse 17, comfort your hearts and establish
them in every good work and word, so that Jesus Christ, Paul is
praying that Jesus Christ would continue to establish your hearts
in every good work and word and give you comfort. So it's the work of Jesus that
gives that. What is that called? The gospel.
Where do we find it in our time of need? The throne of grace.
Where is it? In the Bible. In the scripture, we come back
to the truth of Christ. What about the other parts? Well,
look at God the Father. God the Father is the one who
loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through
grace. You see why the context there demands that that mean
in the beginning, from the beginning? God chose for Himself from the
beginning to be saved by grace. Now may Jesus Christ, the Son,
the effectual agent of this justification, the one to whom all praise is
due, may Jesus Christ comfort you and establish your hearts
in every work and word." Every work and word. This prayer petition
is reminding us of the Father who loved us and gave us eternal
comfort and good hope through grace. Romans 15, 4, "...for
whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction,
that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures,
we might have hope." You want hope? Stay in Christ's Word. Nothing else works. That's why it's such a bad thing
that we can be in it on our own. It's such a bad thing when we
miss the Lord's day together. Because we miss out on something
dynamic happening, something supernatural taking place. And
not only do we hear it together, but we move and we're taught
in the same direction. And then we actually are fellowshipping
together around that word. And if you haven't experienced
it yet, God gives divine opportunities for you to be ministered to amongst
these people. That's why you're here. May the Lord Jesus Christ himself
comfort you and establish you in every good work and deed.
This means that everything we see, everything we believe, everything
we understand about the gospel of Jesus Christ is to establish
us and comfort us in our times of need. Paul prays something
very similar As I've already reminded us in First Thessalonians
5, he says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved, God will keep
you in Christ. God will keep you in Christ. Holding fast and standing firm
is to hold on the power of God's word. What happens when we don't have
the strength to do it? Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever been so down you couldn't open God's Word? Prayerfully,
what the Scripture teaches in Romans is that God, when we are
unable or do not know how we ought to pray, the Spirit will
pray for us. And I will tell you, an experience
is not evidence, but the Word of God teaches us that. And I
know that in one of the darkest seasons of my life, when I had
given up on Christ, and given up on ministry, and given up
on life, God, in a way of even obstinance in my own understanding
of things, drove me to open the Bible for one more time. And I dared God to show it to
me. I hadn't read the book of Hebrews in a long time. And no
matter where you turn, for God's people, the truth is there. The
truth is there. And the power is there. And the
grace is there. Grace to you, Paul writes. And then he writes everything
that he wants to teach and say. And then when he gets through,
he says, grace be with you. so that the grace of God that
strengthens us, as he teaches young Timothy, he says, be strengthened
by the grace which is yours in Jesus Christ. How does it come
to us through the word of God? It comes through the word. Grace
to us through the word, grace be with us from the word that
we've heard. This is the power to stay. And when we cannot,
God will, for he is faithful. And when we cannot, God will
sometimes, just through our own minds, cause us to pick it up.
Or cause us to remember what we've already heard. Or cause
our brothers and sisters to come into our lives and minister to
us in a time of need. Or cause us to see what needs
to happen so that we, so that we can give thanksgiving to God.
Because isn't that the end result of it all? We ought to thank
God for you. And we, beloved, ought to thank
God for each other. And thank God for what He's done
in our own lives. And not just what He's done, but what He will
continue to do because He's promised to complete the work. Let's pray. We love You, Father. We're overwhelmed
considering Your grace and Your mercy toward us in Christ Jesus.
We thank You, Father, that You have loved us and chosen us for
Yourself from the beginning of time. that you've shown your
love for us through Jesus Christ. And Father, this day, as we worship
together as your people, Lord, would you give us the strength
to stand? Would you give us the power to
hold fast to the confession of our hope in Christ? Would you
give us the resolve to know that we do not have to work, but that
Christ has done all the work? We are secure. We are sealed. We are steadfast because you
are a mighty God and Lord, you can do all things and you have
done all things through Christ Jesus, our savior. It's in his
name we pray. Amen.