This coming Monday will be 499
years ago when a young monk in Germany had had enough. Having received the Greek New
Testament written by Erasmus from his confessor, Martin Luther
began to read the language of God's Word in its original writ. He began to read that which was
Good enough for Jesus, which was a Greek Bible. Yes, the Old
Testament for Jesus was Greek, not Hebrew. Everything was Greek. And the original language of
this Erasmus text, which some of us would know our history,
five of his texts plus several others came known as the Received
Text or the TR. through which the English version
that James I authorized was translated to some degree. But the point
is, is that the Reformation next year will have been 500 years
old. 500 years ago, Martin Luther
came to understand that his view of justification by his own upbringing
and education was wrong. And he came to that understanding
because he was given the copy of the Scripture that had not
been changed. He'd been given the Word of God
in a purest way, so that the original tongue would speak for
itself. And he realized that justification,
that is how we stand righteous before God, is by faith alone. He learned by reading the Pauline
letters that justification is by faith and that the righteous
live by faith. And for the last 499 years, we
have been in a forever battle against this issue. Ecclesiology, that is the study
of the church. How the church should function
is called polity. We've come a long ways from orthodoxy. Orthodoxy meaning right. Martin Luther had been given
the eyes to see the condition of the church. And 499 years
ago, Luther did very little boasting at all about the church of Rome.
He did very little boasting about their teaching. As a matter of
fact, 499 years ago this Monday, on All Hallows Eve, O Holy Night,
Martin Luther nailed 95 theses on the door of the chapel in
Wittenberg. I saw a meme this morning that
showed a historic rendering of him doing that, and people behind
him. He says, no, I'm not fixing your door, I'm fixing your theology. But it was far from over, and
it's far from over now, beloved. We have a very unbiblical and
unholy view of who the church is, by the very question that
we ask, what is the church? We put an impersonal pronoun
in the question as if it's some object to be held, some entity
to be beheld, or some thing that we are to be able to show the
ins and outs of its structure and say, oh look over there,
there's a church. Friends, this building began
as a store for clothes. I forgot what they call those.
Department store, thank you. Stuff in here, buy, go home.
Yes. That's what it was. And then
it was a shoe store, and then it was a bra store, and then
it was a wig shop for 20 years. And now it's still a wig shop. Now it's still a department store.
Now it's still whatever it is the original creators have intended
it to be. The church is just gathering inside of it. We know these things, but we
often forget them. The problem in Luther's day is
no different than it is today. Many people bear the name evangelical. The Greek word for good news,
that we translate gospel, is evangel. The sharing of good
news is called evangelism. Evangelical means that we stand
on the premise of sharing the good news of Christ. But friends,
I believe most congregations stand in the light of Galatia.
What does that mean? Well, if you've ever read the
letter to the Galatians, you know that Paul said they received
the gospel, they believed upon Christ, thereby being justified
as His people, faith alone. They begin to add to that faith
alone. They begin to add to the precepts
of Judaism that circumcision was required. Some people through
the years would say, baptism is required. Some people would
say a church covenant is required. Some people say a certain text
of Scripture is required. A certain Greek knowledge is
required. A certain authorized version is required. A certain
way of doing things is required. Listen, the only thing that is
required for salvation is faith alone in Jesus Christ. Nothing
else, and there is nothing more. There is nothing more. This was
the heartache of Martin Luther. This was the heartache of John
Calvin. This was the heartache of Zwigli and others, of the
Reformation. Reform by definition means that
we are going to change something. We're going to take it back to
what it should be. But friends, even when we think we
have it right, I want to propose that we fall very close to just
being Another people sitting in another building with the
right information, but no life. The church had given many ways
to man to come to God in Luther's day. And so much that you could actually
take and if you had a little bit of money you could pay the
church and they would write you a writ of forgiveness that you
could go sin. Let's say you like to party on
Fridays. Well, you were going to get hammered and maybe beat
up your neighbor in a bar brawl. Well, they would sell you forgiveness
ahead of time. Why? Because they had to get
St. Peter's Cathedral built. It's a fundraiser. That's the
purpose that they started it. The bishops were fundraisers
for the continual filthy lucre of Romanism. while all those
that sat on thrones, literally, got richer and richer on the
backs of the poor. And what they did is no different
than the prosperity gospel of today, no different than the
compulsion of many evangelical churches as they shove a plate
in your face and say, this is between you and God. No different. Why now are we
talking so negatively? Because this is the life we live.
It is full of negatives. It is full of problems. It is
full of error. It is full of condemnation. It
is full of wickedness. It is full of evil. However beloved,
the church should not be that way. The church should not think that
way. The church should not fall prey to the humanism that is
so rampant amongst our day. And it's not new. I remember
being a teenager and the term new age was really something. Oh, it's this new age. It's old
age. It's old age from the fall of
the enemy. It's old age from the days of
the Garden of Eden. It's the old age, old serpent,
the devil, the deceiver, the father of lies, the wicked. And
he continually deceives. And yes, even the people of God
can fall prey to deception. Not to the eternal loss of their
souls, but to keep them bogged down with fighting." What does
Paul say? Do not argue and dispute over
words. I like to argue over words. Why? Because words matter. I like
clear and precise speaking. I like clear and precise communication.
I don't like to read between the lines because the options
are myriads. I don't like to read
in between the assumptions and the inferences. I like to clearly
hear exactly what it is that's being said, don't you? Say what
you say, say what you mean, mean what you say. Let your yes be
yes and your no be no. Well, friends, the Reformation
has never ended. It should never have ended. But
we look at it as a place of history rather than a present reality.
Much like many Christians so-called look at their faith. Well, I
was saved in 1990. Really? Well, I was saved in
1960. Were you? Great! Are you saved this day? Are you believing right now?
Are you trusting in Christ this very moment? Are you alive in
Christ right this second? Is your faith in Jesus Christ
or is your faith in the faith of your faith? Do you put hope
into what you've done or do you put hope into what Christ has
accomplished? See the difference. And I believe
that many of us need to take a harder look at this. We need
to recognize that we are allowing the world to seep into our thoughts.
We are allowing worldliness to take us by the throat as if it
were massaging our shoulders. We're allowing improper understanding
of God's Word, improper use and abuse of God's Word in our own
lives. We're going on the internet and we're sufficing ourselves
in our Christian walk with someone who is not even concerned with
us, nor has ever met us, neither will they ever pray for us, while
we forsake the gathering together of the local church, which is
a sin before God, and according to Hebrews, is actually the litmus
test of apostasy and unbelief. Our social media has become our
evangelism. Our lives are on display and
people can see clearly exactly what we are and what we hold
dear to our hearts. The church of Rome during the
days of Luther had given in to secularism. They had replaced
Christ on earth, the vicar. He had given people over to others
and to a hierarchy of governors rather than to the local church
to be ministered to and cared for. They had dismissed the Word
of God and allowed tradition and worldly wisdom to invade
all that she was, and Luther would not stand for it. Who was
he before this? Nobody. He had a small appointment
in a small school in a small place in Europe. And he was put
there because he was already a little off, according to the
church. He already taught too much of
Scripture and not enough of the annals of the church. He already
taught too much of the Word of God and taught people to think
about what they heard and make it their own faith rather than
just absorbing like open-mouthed baby birds to be shoved down
whatever anyone wanted. Second Thessalonians, turn there
with me. It's been a month. This is the
fourth Sunday, four Sundays ago. I preached the introduction to
this letter. We're going to continue to go
through it. There are 30 sermons on the church website for 1 Thessalonians
if you'd like to go back and check and see what you've missed
if you were not here on some of those Sundays. I'll read all
the way through, verse 4. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
to the church of the Thessalonians and God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to give thanks
to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith
is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for
one another is increasing. Therefore, we ourselves boast
about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and
faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you
are enduring. Look at verse 5, 6, and 7 real
quickly. This what the afflictions and
persecutions that you are enduring is evidence of the righteous
judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom
of God for which you are also suffering. Since indeed God considers
it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to
grant relief to those to you who are afflicted as well as
to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven. with His
mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those
who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Let me pray. Father, this word
is true, so that as it bends in our minds and it fights against
our beliefs, Lord, that You would be powerful among us, Lord, to see
the error and to put it to death, rather than try to conform You
to our way of thinking. Lord, I pray that You would do
that. I pray that You would encourage us through this word today, that
You would give us strength to hear it, that every distraction
that might be in our hearts and minds this very moment would
just go to the side, that we could focus on You and the ineffable
essence of Your majesty and glory and grace and mercy and kindness
and love and power and worth. Father, take all that I am away
from me and away from these people that they may not hear me, but
Father, that your word would be true. God, that you would
do a mighty thing here today as your word is preached, that
we might know you more intimately and love you more dearly and
follow after you more closely to the praise of your grace,
which is absolutely glorious. absolutely perfect in Jesus Christ,
the Son whom you sent to suffer for us. In His name we pray. Amen. There's a couple of things. I don't want to re-preach the
latter part of the last sermon that I did here, which was an
hour 21 minutes. I realized that as I listened
to it on Thursday. I thought, wow, no wonder y'all
went to sleep. But I won't do that today. I
have a clock in the back. So when I see it getting time,
I'll pick up next week. In this, there's several things
I want to reiterate, and then I want to focus on some specific
things this morning as we continue to move in this letter. First,
as we see Paul say in verse 3, we ought to always give thanks,
just as a way of reminder that it's an imperative. It's a divine
imperative that shows us that there is nothing else to do but
give thanks to God, and it is right, it is righteous, brothers,
that we thank God for the work that He's doing in you. If you
remember at all the overarching theme of the first letter to
these Christians, it was that God was working among them inasmuch
that their testimony was known around all of Macedonia. And I remember several times
during the preaching, even the last time I preached here at
the other building, on this text, that the boasting of the apostles
about this local little church was really the key element that
we saw throughout the letter. And that they were to be encouraged,
they were not to fall prey to false teachers who were saying
that the Lord had already returned. They should not worry about those
who are being martyred for their faith and dying. That they are
alive in Christ, though they die, yet we live, Paul says to
the Corinthian church. And that they will be resurrected
physically in the flesh from the dead, and then all of us
will be together again. So we give thanks, he says. Why? Look there. Because of your faith,
verse 3, the second part, and because it's growing abundantly,
we give thanks to God and we're compelled to give thanks to God.
You know what that shows? That shows that there is visible
evidence of the work of God in the lives of those Christians.
The question then for us is, is there visible evidence in
our lives of God's work? And friends, it's not that we
wear Christian t-shirts, or that we have Christian motifs around
our house, or that we have a nice clean Bible, or that we have
an ichthys on our car, a little fishy thing. It's not that we
sing in the choir, or come to church, or teach a Sunday school
class, or call to the ministry, or do church planning. It's not
about that. It's about the righteousness
of Christ being absolutely visible inside of our lives, so that
when we are collectively gathered, the light is too bright for the
world to look upon. Why? Because the name of God
is at stake. The name of Christ is at stake.
His glorious power, His divine decrees that He said He would
predestine, He's predestined us to what? To live in righteousness,
in Christ Jesus, in love. Ephesians 1. This is the plan of God. There
is no other thing that God will create. When God saves a person,
that's what He does in them. And if it's not in them, they're
not in Him. If I am in you, and you are in
me, and my word abideth in you, you bear much fruit, Christ says.
Don't hear me say what I'm not saying. I am not saying that
your walk in obedience is satisfactory to your justification. What I
am saying is that God, before He breathed out, let there be
light. He created righteousness for
us to walk in. He created good works for us
to walk in so that it may be clearly seen when we come to
the light of Christ that He is at work in us. That's the whole
argument of John 3. It is the quintessential perfection
of the absolute power of the gospel of Christ that Paul says
we ought not be ashamed of. You know why we're ashamed of
the gospel? Because we don't want to be measured by righteousness.
So therefore we, who do not want to be measured by righteousness,
do not come to the light, because if we stand in the light in our
wickedness, the wickedness is revealed. Well, I've never heard that before.
Yes, you have. I preach it just about every week. And people
groan in their seats, and they groan in their chairs at home,
and they listen to these sermons, and they don't darken the doors
of our fellowship, because they don't want to hear this legalism. It's not legalism, it's Lord
Almighty and His creative power. These hyper-graced people are
standing on the precipice of judgment. Because they are purveying
a wicked, satanic gospel that is not good. It is not gospel. And the only thing they can do
is become polemics. To find a problem with everything.
To find the gnat in the hay field. Look, there's a gnat. Look at
the wheat. Look at the ground. No, look
at the gnat. Where? You've got to go over there 60
acres away. It's over there. There's gnats in all of us. There's
specks in all of us. There's logs in all of our eyes.
What are we going to do about it? Oh, what wretched man am
I? We're going to trust in Christ, who is our
righteousness. Psst. We're going to trust in Christ. Christ is our righteousness.
Christ is our only hope. Because even when we labor, and
we walk as perfect as we can, it does not satisfy the holiness
of God. Hear that, church. Listen, listen.
Even when there is not one act of sin that we can pinpoint,
there is still the flesh at work. We had our men's group yesterday
morning, a couple of us stayed afterward and we talked. I won't tell you about the topic
on the table, you'll have to come to the next one to figure
it out. We were dialoguing, we were looking and talking and
it was a good conversation and the point was made that if we followed each other
around, we probably, as we mature in Christ, would not be able
to go, huh, I see a sin. Look at that sin over there.
Look at that sin over there. Because most of our sins remain
in here. Most of the sin in our lives,
as maturing Christians, is in our heart. And we're good enough
in our righteousness, don't listen to that. We're good enough in
our living to hide it. If you're a coveter, if you suffer
from the sin of covetousness, nobody will know it unless you
just start telling people. I wish I had all that. I wish
I had his stuff. I wish I had her stuff. Or people
start seeing you show up with their outfit on. Or their car. Or painting your house the same
color. Or whatever it might be. But for the most part, as we
grow in Christ, our sins aren't very noticeable. but they're
still there. So there is no righteousness
even in the best of obedience. Paul makes that very clear as
he teaches to the Philippians. Does he not? He says there that
according to the law of God, listen, what does he say? I am
blameless. That means that everything that
Moses wrote for the Jews to do, he followed completely without
error. That's unbelievable. Because most of us don't even
click our seatbelt when we get in the car, which is the law of God. That's
what we talked about yesterday. We can't obey the law of God
through the law of the state on simple things like seatbelts
and speed. We cannot obey the law of the gospel. But praise God, Christ is our
righteousness. He buckles his seatbelt. But, what does he say there?
We give thanks. Because your love, because your
faith is growing abundantly, your love for every one of you
is increasing. Verse 4, and this is where we'll
be for the rest of our time today. Verse 4. Therefore, we ourselves
boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness
and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you
are enduring. I want to ask a question. How
do we boast? Does the Scripture not teach
that we're not to boast in anything but Christ? I mean, especially
to the Corinthians. The first and the second letter
to Corinth says, in verse 31 of chapter 1, so that as it is
written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. And the second
letter, 10-17, said, let the one who boasts, boast in the
Lord. It's an allusion back to the same text. And so we see
these things and yet we see Paul saying, therefore we ourselves
boast about you. What does it look like? I ended the
sermon four Sundays ago in this introduction there with this.
That's what I did is I tried to drive all of this into one
message and it was not going to work. And so I left this parting
thought with you. Do you remember what it was?
Are we a church worth boasting about? Are we a people worth bragging
on? Now see, some of us, maybe all
of us, go, that contradicts my worldview from a biblical standpoint.
I'm not supposed to boast. You're not supposed to brag.
You're right. Good. But what's Paul doing? Is he violating the law of God?
No. He's perfectly in line with the gospel. How do we know? Because we just went through
30 weeks of the first letter. He boasts in the Lord for the
Lord's work in their righteousness, in their faith, in their forbearance,
in their endurance, in their suffering, in their love for
each other. And they're standing for orthodoxy, standing for truth,
standing for rightness. So the boast is in the Lord for
doing the work, is it not? Think about that for a moment.
Now ask the question, is there room for boasting in the Lord
in my life? Would my brothers and sisters
of this fellowship boast to others about the work of the Lord in
my life? I think Jesse said it something like this last Sunday.
Would anybody be able to know that I'm a Christian? When I went to California, a
lot of people thought I was European. They couldn't get the accent.
Because if you're out there and you sound like a hick, you're
from Texas. Are you from Texas? No? England? I'm pale enough,
but anyway. And they'd always ask the question,
well, how'd you end up out here? I said, well, I was in ministry
on the East Coast for my entire life up until now, and everybody's
a Christian. So I left. And they look at me
real funny. I said, you don't believe me?
Ask them. Isn't that the case? Isn't that the case? That everybody
you meet, I'm a Christian, I love the Lord, praise God, God is
good all the time, and all the time God is good, and all the
time God is good. I mean, it's constant. Everybody's got a spiritual
thing on their tongue. Jesus said to the Pharisees,
you praise me with your lips, but your hearts are far from
me. You're whitewashed tombs. You're a brood of vipers. You're
dogs. You're unworthy of the righteousness of God. You're
unworthy of me because you put your hand in the plow and you
turn back. You go out and you tend to your personal business.
You hold people to a standard that you yourselves do not live
up to. Then, now you shut the kingdom of God in the face of
the people. Woe to you, Jesus says. Listen, if God says woe
to us, we best take note. If God says woe to our neighbor,
we best look and see what our neighbors do and go, nah, let's
don't go there. If at three in the morning you
call the cops, because there's something going on in your neighborhood,
everybody wakes up and sees it, they look over there, okay, my
neighbors did that, I'm not gonna do that, because I'm gonna get
in trouble. What's the trouble? What's the trouble? The trouble
is, let's go back to the Garden of Eden. Let's go back to the
fall of Satan. What did Satan want? Did he want
to kick God off the throne? No. He knew better that he couldn't. He did want it, but he wasn't
stupid enough to say it. He says, I will ascend. I will
sit there with you. I will. Look at me. Look how
beautiful I am. See, this is the satanic boasting. This is the satanic boasting
that Jesus talks about in Mark's Gospel, where he sees the Pharisee
and the publican, and the contrast of them. The Pharisee who is
the religious reformers of Israel. You know that after the Maccabeans?
The religious reformers of Israel. What's happening? They want to
put Orthodoxy back in Israel. They want to get temple worship
re-established. They want to get the Word of
God back on a high stature. Back
on a high place. And then now, hundreds of years
later, what are they? The heretics. They represent
the most righteous people. Jesus even says himself, if your
righteousness is not greater than that of the Pharisees, you
can't enter my kingdom. What? As they supposedly live,
you've got to be better than them. You've got to be holy. You've got to be absolutely perfect
with never a sin, never an ill thought, never an ill thing,
never a selfish intention, never a cross word, never doubt, never
fear, never cry in depression and self-pity, never anything.
You've got to be better. So in this comparison that Jesus
gives, there's a Pharisee who is the poster child of righteousness
for the people of Israel. And here is the most hated man
in society, which is a tax collector. Why are they so hated? Come on,
guys. We have to go there? Now, we hate tax collectors in
our day that actually obey the law. The tax collectors of Israel's
day did not get paid. The Hellenized Jews, and see
if you don't understand anything about 1st century Rome and 1st
century Jerusalem, Rome governed and owned it all. But in an attempt
to be somewhat couth, they allowed Jews to live in their own culture. But taxes went to Caesar. And everybody paid. If you didn't
pay it, you went to prison. So you could pay it, but you
were in prison because you couldn't work. So you couldn't get a job. So you
couldn't pay it. So you died in prison. And when you went
to jail, you didn't get three hots and a cot. You got nothing
but a stone slab. And if your family didn't have
the means and the resources to give you medicine, to give you
clothes, and to give you food, every time you needed it, every day,
you died in there of starvation within just a few short weeks.
There was no civil rights in 1st century Rome, for Pete's
sake. The closest thing to civil rights was they felt that if
they hit you 40 times with a cat and nine tails that you'd die,
so they'd hit you 39. So it's the 40 lashes minus one.
That was their mercy. And at 10 to 12, you had no more
physical flesh. All the dermis on the back were
gone. All three levels were gone. So you saw muscle on your back.
That's around halfway there. By 39, it had reached around
to your ribcage and torn the meat and the cartilage out from
your ribcage. And that's if you blaspheme Caesar or stole before
they put you on the cross. Well, here's this contrast. This
Jewish tax collector, a publican, in this comparison to this Pharisee,
they are far off. Because the Jewish tax collector
didn't get a salary. Caesar said, I want this many
denarii from every house. And you're not getting paid unless
you get more. So whatever you can get on top of what I want,
you know, that's like helping your buddy sell a tractor. All
I want is a thousand dollars. If you can get ten thousand,
you can have nine. Until you do it. So that's what these Jewish people
did. They went in and not only did they take more than they
should, they did it out of greed. And they did it with centurions
standing to their left and right with swords and spears. And if
you didn't pay, they shook you down. And if they couldn't find
it when they shook you down, they killed you. And that's what this tax collector
was doing to his own people. So imagine how hated he was.
So here is this Pharisee in the temple courts going, oh I thank
you God that I'm not like the tax collector. I tithe, I pray,
I worship, I live in righteousness, I obey the law, I go to church,
I do everything, I sing in the choir, I preach and I teach and
I do all that's right. I say a prayer before all of
my meals, I wash my hands and I brush my teeth and I wipe my
butt. I am so good and I thank you
God, he boasts in God, for my righteousness. And then Jesus
says, but then the publican, the tax collector over here,
would not even dare come into this area, but for far off he
sat on the ground and he knelt and he cried out and he tore
his clothes in agony. He dared not even look toward
the heaven, which is a posture of prayer, first century. You
pray with your eyes open looking to heaven. Not like this, but
this. You don't see people bow their
heads at meal, they're not heretics, they're actually praying probably. And he says, he doesn't say anything.
He doesn't say, I've tried and I'm just trying to make a living
and I'm sorry. He says, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And do you know what Jesus says
about these two? The Pharisee, with all of his
obedience, is condemned. The tax collector in all of his
wickedness is justified. Why? He didn't make a case for
himself, he trusted wholly in the Lord. That's what the gospel
is. It's good news that you don't
have to become a Pharisee to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
Because they did it. In John chapter 4, the woman
at the well of Sychar, a Samaritan, a hated, a half-breed, hybrid,
Jew, Assyrian, somewhat pagan, somewhat Jewish, somewhat Orthodox,
somewhat heretic. They created an exact replica
of Solomon's temple at Mount Gerizim. And she's talking with Jesus
about all her worship. and about her forefather Jacob.
And Jesus says he's greater than Jacob because the water he gives
endures to eternal life. Do not labor, do not drink, except
that which gives you eternal life. Jesus is the one who gives
you eternal life. And she goes, and she keeps talking,
and then he confronts her sin. She changes the subject. She
tries to get into politics. He confronts her sin. She changes
the subject, tries to get into religion and heritage. And he
finally, miraculously, listen to this, in the midst of all
this debate in John 4, Jesus saves this woman, regenerates
her, births her from above, to which she finally concedes in
her spirit, confessed by her mouth, I guess Messiah is our
only hope to answer all of these. I guess what I've been doing,
worshipping this way, being part of this denomination, part of
this religion, and part of this practice, and part of this, I've
still got a void and I'm hiding from that void, I'm hiding from
that emptiness, I'm hiding from my sin to the point where nobody
loves me. I have to come to the well by
myself because I'm called names. Because I'm shacking up with
every man who will give me an eye. And by the way, that's the only
sin that Jesus specifically confronts. But she says, then I guess Messiah
must tell us all these things. And Jesus says, woman, the one
of whom you speak, I am! She immediately runs to Sychar.
Behold, I've met a man that's told me everything that I've
ever done! Ever done! She no longer put
trust in her worship, her heritage, her religion, her focus, her
excuses. No longer was any of her faith
that she had practiced in all of her life worth anything. But
Christ was everything. And she was willing to lay it
all down because He made her alive. That's what's good news,
folks. There's no more good news than
that. But when He gave her life, oh, did she live! That's the point. That's where
we are today. She lived. We live. To live is
Christ Church! The stodgy, frowny, hard-nosed,
hard-lined, hard-head people who will argue with you, because
you strive for the joy of your soul, which is righteousness,
should just be ignored. Paul says that those people who
continue to stir division over words and genealogies and doctrine,
it is an excommunicable offense if it's not repented of. When
we bring things like that into the local assembly, it is just
as if we're cheating on our spouse, robbing banks, and murdering
children. It is just as wicked, just as
divisive. When a pastor stands in the pulpit,
and talks his own horn, and toots his own resume, and does not
preach from the text of God, he is a divisive, noisy, clangy
gong that has no place standing before the people of God. And
it is only by the grace of God that that is not me. We boast about you to the churches. Church, I want us to be boastable. 1 Thessalonians 4, he says, now
concerning brotherly love, this is a reminder, you have no need
of anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught
by God to love one another. Who taught them? God. How did He teach them? Through
the words of the apostles. His Spirit bare witness to their
spirit. That what they learned was true. Because they belonged
to Him. And He created good works for
them to walk in beforehand. Because they're His creation.
And His workmanship. Beloved, that is true of us if
we are in Christ today. For that indeed is what you are
doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you brothers. Somebody said, remember this
sermon? They're loving, and Paul says,
you're doing great, it's incredible, but I urge you brothers, do it
more and more. And to aspire to live quietly,
to mind your own business, and to work with your hands as we
instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders.
So Paul prayed as we saw in 1 Thessalonians, and God has answered as we see
in 2 Thessalonians. We're hearing your testimony
and now we're boasting about you. What does it look like?
What do congregations today boast about? There you go. You can talk to
me sometimes. Numbers, baptisms, programs,
CDs and retirement accounts. Missions giving? What's wrong with missions? Nothing.
Unless you brag about it. Decisions, attractions, rededications,
recommitments, realignments, rebaptisms. What do people boast about? We
ought to come, what do they say? Come to my church. What are you going to give them
when they come here? The Word of God. Come to my church. We have everything for everybody.
If I had some fire right now, I'd juggle for us. I put a joke
up, what, months ago on Facebook. I said, coming this Sunday, we're
going to cancel service and we're going to do this and do that
and do this and do that and do this and do that. And I had two
or three people private message me because they didn't get all
the way through it. And it was very harsh. I said,
brother, rebuke, receive, praise God, read the rest of the post.
I'm not canceling church so we can have a carnival. Sadly, it
was the same day that one of our prior churches had a carnival. Same weekend. I'm like, it was
not intended to be a, oh well. What would the Lord say about
most churches? How would He boast about us? How would He boast
about most congregations in this day? I think those of you who
were here on Tuesday nights two weeks ago, as I preached, well
not preached, as I ran through chapters two and three of Revelation,
I'm running through like two chapters a night, we saw Jesus
writing a letter to the churches, the completion of the churches
of Asia Minor. And he told the first one, I
admire your tenacity, your standing for truth, you're all Reformed,
that's good. I'm just joking, but I bet he
would brag on that. You hold the truth, but I have
this one thing that I condemn you for one thing, you've forsaken
your first love. What is the first love of the
church? Jesus Christ. What does the first love of the
church produce secondarily, but of equal importance? Love for
each other. So your first love is to not love Christ or to not
love each other. I guarantee you everybody would stand there
and go, Oh I love Jesus! I love Jesus! I love Jesus! I
love Jesus! I hate that man over there. I'm
not coming back to church because he's there. He said something
about me. He looked at me. Mom! He looked at me! So and so is on my side of the
seat. It's a bench seat. Deal with it. I'm talking about church members. I'm talking about church members.
I'm talking about things I've actually heard from church members
in my near two decades of ministry. Well, I'm just not going to put
up with that family coming in here and sitting in my row. I said, that's fine,
stay outside. That was my answer to that guy.
Probably not the right answer, but it was my answer. I heard somebody was talking
about me. Oh yeah? Am I the first person you've
told? Well, no. I said, well, you're talking
about them. How about that? You like them apples? Eve did
too. See, I wasn't always kind and
gentle. Jesus will say you've forsaken
your first love. Jesus would say, I don't boast about you,
you've tolerated heresy. I don't boast about you, you
tolerate worldliness. You make a mockery of my gospel
by giving credence to the things that are wicked. When I commanded
you in my word through my apostles to call out darkness and say,
that's darkness, this is light, this is righteousness, that's
wickedness. I didn't think we were supposed
to do that. Yes, we are. We don't silently just stand
with our hands over our mouth. We see evil, we hear evil, but
we don't say anything about it. In Revelation 3, Jesus says,
I'm going to remove you from the earth. I'm going to take
away all that you are. This shines in every aspect of
my glory. You will not be known ever again. Does that sound familiar? And sadly, it didn't mean that
He killed them. He just let them exist in their
self-sufficiency, and their disobedience, and their inability to come and
obey that which God had revealed them. Because they love the glory
that comes from man, rather than glory that comes from God. Jesus would say, I condemn you,
church, because of the famine of the Word of God. I condemn
you, church, because you are allowing sin among you. You are
allowing those who have been tricked by the spirit of Jezebel.
I condemn you, church, because you're hateful. You're conniving. You're self-righteous. So what is it that Paul is praising
and boasting in these people? Where is a church like Thessalonica? Where is a church like the Thessalonians?
Where is that congregation? I pray that we would be like
that. He says, we boast about you in
the churches of God. What does that look like? It looks like this. Hey, have you seen what's going
on in Thessalonica? Have you heard about that? Hey, I know
I'm in Philippi right now, but have you heard what's going on
over there? Have you heard, people of Achaia, what's happening down
below you? Have you heard what's going on
in Thessalonica? Have you seen what God is doing?
Have you listened to the reports? Oh yeah, we've listened to the
reports. How do we know that? Because it says that they already heard,
when they showed up to these towns, the praise on the lips
of the people that something transformative had happened in
Thessalonica. Friends, are we just doing religious
stuff and calling it Christianity? Are we just coming to a building
and sitting together and saying we're doing our spiritual duty?
Are we saying we're having church because we feel emotional, we're
all excited, and we're breakdancing, or we're backflipping, or we're
juggling fire? Those are all metaphors. Are we saying that God showed
up when He's always in us just because we feel a little different
about things? Are we being entertained or are
we silent, awestruck? Is the Word of God speaking to
our hearts to where everything that we are and everything that
we love most is secondary to the glorious affection we have
for Jesus Christ who is enough? Do we understand that the praise
of heaven is nothing but one song, one voice, one people of
every nation, tribe and tongue singing, worthy, worthy, worthy,
holy, holy, holy. If that doesn't excite you, you
probably won't be there with us. Notice I said probably. That's all the worship we're
ever going to get. Your pastor's not going to play. Saxophones
aren't going to be there. There's nothing but my voice
and your voice. And one thing to do is to worship
our God, who is the Lamb that was slain. So I believe that what we do
here ought to reflect that. That's what the brother was talking
about this morning. Tuesday night was good, y'all. It shook us a little
bit, those of you who were here. It's on the internet, go listen
to it. God's Word is good. What does He boast? What would
make us boastable? Steadfastness. Look at it. I boast about you in the churches
of God for your steadfastness and for your faith in all your
persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring. If I can finish this in ten minutes,
we'll see. I boast in the Lord because of
your steadfastness and your faith. Now what does that look like?
What does it look like? Brother Jesse and Timothy last
week mentioned some of these things. Are you steadfast, beloved? Are we as a people steadfast
in the face of persecutions? What does that look like? Well,
it looked like when we started the church. We don't need you
here. Do not do this. We will not receive
you. Exact quotes from the leadership
of this area. Well, we're coming anyway. I
don't obey you, I obey God. And I don't obey God if it's
not in His Word. We don't obey God, we don't use that as a trump
card to say, oh, I'm obeying God, the Spirit told me. If it's
not in the Bible, the Spirit ain't told you nothing. The Spirit will tell you exactly
what's in the Word of God, even if you haven't opened it, but
you have read it. If it's not in there, you haven't
heard from God, you've heard from something else. Persecutions? What are we supposed
to do? Well, we're just not going to start a church. We'll just
go back to California. We'll go back to Oakland. They
love me there. What do I want? Love or truth? What do you want? How many people bailed on us
when things got hard? A lot. Why? For various reasons. Things got hard. Well, I'm tired
of sitting at breakfast and people making fun of me because I'm
going to this church. Well, you know how much fun they're going
to make of you when you say that you follow Christ? When you say
that you're not going to falter in the persecution of temptation?
When you stay steadfast in the Word of God and say that the
Word of God regulates everything? You know what they're going to
do? They're going to mock you. And one day when the reign of God What am I trying to say here?
When the reign of God's grace is taken off of our government,
and they're allowed to burn us as street lamps, that'll cost
you your life. And that's what the Thessalonians
were dealing with. And Paul says, I'm boasting about you because
you're staying strong. You're staying strong in persecutions.
You're staying strong in all of your afflictions. You're standing... Firm. How do they stand? What
do you do? Is there a magic wand? Is there
a magic suit? Is there a magic underwear? What does it work?
How does it work? What does it? It's the Word of
God. In Ephesians 6, when we see the
word for word there, when it says that the Sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God, it is our defense, it is our rock,
it is our fortress. The Word of God is the only thing
that keeps us standing against the darts and the fieryness of
the enemy. But in that Word, it's not just
Logos, it's Rima. The hearing, spoken Word of God. That means that when we are reading
the Bible, warfare is victorious. When we put it away, we are defeated. We can't wait till Sunday for
some talking head. Yeah, I said it again. Some talking
head. to just give you some of the
Bible. You've got to bring it with you. Some people say, well, I can't
track with you because you're not reading the Bible. If I just all of a sudden started
preaching in French, every Sunday, just started preaching in French,
using the French Bible, and did everything in French, everybody
would be like, I don't understand this. And you either do one of
two things. You'll be like, I've got to go
somewhere I can understand it, or I'm going to learn French. Why exposition feels like French
to some of you who do not speak the language is because you don't
read it during the week so that you're familiar with what we're
saying. I can't preach every Sunday for 30 weeks all five
chapters of 1 Thessalonians. There's a sequence to it. We've got to stand firm. And
we've got to stand firm in Christ at all costs. Now here's the
kicker. I say those things and everybody's
going, okay, he said the Word of God, now how? When is this
going to ease up? It doesn't ease up. Standing
firm has nothing to do with easing up. It doesn't get easier. Standing
firm is, the harder the wind blows, the more firm we plant.
Because when the wind stops blowing, when the wind of harm, and the
wind of affliction, and the wind of suffering, and the wind of
persecution stop blowing, we dig up our roots. Do we not? And Hurricane Matthew blew 50
plus mile an hour winds against my house. And I was going to go outside
to crank my generator and couldn't open the back door, even with
my wife's help. I'm like, this is something. What did I do? Went out the front. The minute I stepped out into
the driveway where there was nothing to hide that wind, I
knew I'd made a mistake. I called my dad and my dad said,
son, just run fast and keep your light on the trees and if you
hear cracking, run faster. Real encouraging. The next morning
when the wind wasn't blowing, I walked around my yard like
I owned it again. Friends, God's not going to take
the wind of persecution away from the church. It cannot happen. It will not happen. And the reason
that a church is worthy of boast is that they suffer well. And
then they're not sitting there praying for God to take away
the pain and to bring all the pleasure. You know where the
pleasure lies? What did Jesus say? He looked
beyond the cross to the joy. What is the joy? The joy came
through the suffering. Where's the glory of it all?
It comes through the suffering. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, that
this light, momentary affliction prepares us for an eternal weight
of glory beyond all comparison. How? As we look to those things
that are unseen. A marriage is in trouble? I die
to myself, I die to my spouse, I die to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I live that He might live in me, not I. How do I do it? I eat the Word of God until I
cannot eat another bite, and then I go for more. Even if I
lose everything around me, I shall remain steadfast in Him, for
He is my fortress. We like to sing those types of
songs, but do we live them every day? Church, I plead with you,
I implore you, I exhort you, and I admonish you. Do not play
games with your faith to think that you're satisfied in Christ
when you have not opened the Word of God all day. And by 5
o'clock when everything's aggravated and when we're frustrated and
when we're tired of it all and we don't want to hear anybody
or see anybody, it's because there is no food left in us.
that we might stand steadfast. And we find ourselves complaining
about the good things that come from heaven, which includes our
pain, our poverty, and our illness, and our disease, and our death,
and our martyrdom. These are the glorious beauties
of the treasures of Christ. God has promised His people suffering. He has not promised them wealth.
He has promised them death. He has not promised them easy
living. He has promised them persecution, not platitudes. And if we are not suffering in
Christ, we do not belong to Him. What does it look like? Nobody
is trying to kill me for my faith. Yes they are, you just don't
know it. People kill us for our faith
and they persecute us when they make these small comments. When
they start to ask us questions and we respond with joy. When
we don't gather into the gossip circle and join in and start
tearing other people down in the spirit of murder. when we
forsake the temptations of worldly pleasures, and we say, no, I
don't want to do that to my body because it is not fitting for
the Lord's servant. When we're willing to do anything
at all costs, even if our spouse, our wife, our husband, our children
abandon us, for the sake of God, for the
sake of Christ, we endure. You see the point? And when we
endure, we are boastable. I don't know if that might be
the right way to say that. We can't boast because we have
so many people. We can't boast because we see
so many people come to the faith. They didn't boast, they just
made a narrative that 3,000 people were added to the number the
day of Pentecost. How did they know that the number was 3,000? Because there were 3,000 people
committed the very same week into the homes of the Christians
to learn more, to eat more, to grow more, to be accountable
more. There was a righteousness that then was transformative. No longer did they worship Artemis,
but they worshipped Jesus. No longer did they sit at a whim
of their show that had to come on on Fridays at six, but they
sat at the whim of when can I come together with my people for the
sake of suffering for my God. What's the point for us? Friends,
what we've learned here in this text and what we will continue
to learn as chapter 1 verse 5 for next week is that this is evidence. Suffering is evidence of our
salvation. God saves us for His glory, Ephesians
chapter 1, to the praise of His glorious grace that He may be
exalted because He is worthy of exaltation. God saves us for
the sake of His glory above all things. Above even our joy, because
our joy in Him glorifies Him. Do you see that? What is a Christian
without joy? A Christian living in disobedience.
Disobedience to what? The command, rejoice always.
Do all things without grumbling and complaining. Always think
of others more than you think of yourselves. Do nothing out
of vain conceit, vain glory. You know what the word vain means?
Empty, worthless, nothing. God saves us for His glory above
all things. And another point is that our enduring proves our
election. Oh, E-word! Don't use that right now, it's
a couple of weeks too early. That's the word that Paul uses,
and it's the word that John uses. It's the word that Peter uses,
so it's the word that I use. God's election is God's salvation. This is what we don't understand,
the fullness of the mystery of how God saves. We just know what
it is commanded to us to believe in the scripture. And so we know
that which is clearly taught, and it is not in opposition to
what is also taught. Is that all of you hear the gospel
of Jesus Christ, and you are all responsible in your unbelief. but that when God and His Word
gives us ears to hear His Word and we know and we can see, it
is a glorious reality that God has done a great work in our
hearts and our minds and our souls and transformed us to see
if we are enduring, if we persevere, we are truly His. There's no such thing as losing
salvation. Oh, so-and-so was once a preacher. He was saved
and now he's gone. He rejected it and lost and walked
away. He walked away from the same thing he had before he was
there. Nothing. Well, that's impossible. There's
so much power in so many people. Friends, I could read medical
journals for a couple of months and you'd think I was a doctor. I could get a doctor's suit.
And there are some people throughout history, if you look, there are
some people throughout history who have gone into hospitals and actually
pretended to be doctors and had their own practices. Especially
a general practitioner. You're back there in the back
looking up stuff. Oh yeah, this is probably influenza. What do we
give? We give you this. I mean, you
can fake it for a while. Surgeon? Maybe not. I can go somewhere and steal
a person's identity and become a lawyer and stand in court and
argue. Why? Because I can learn rhetoric.
I can learn logic. It doesn't make me a lawyer.
I'm a fake lawyer. You know somebody that's fake
doing something that they're not? You know what that word is? Actor. You think Eddie Murphy in Holy
Man was really a preacher? No, he wasn't. You think Kathy Bates is really
a nun in some of the movies she's played in? No, she's not. She
plays one. Whoopi Goldberg played a nun.
Sister Act, one and two. People played apostles in the
New Testament, and they weren't. People play Christians now. You
know what the Greek word for actor is? Hypocrite. That's a Greek word. We're acting as though we're
Christians, but we're really not. Being a church that is boastful
is no act. Why? Because I'll act. Only to a degree. You know when
the acting stops? When the cost gets high. You
know when the acting is over? Okay, new gig. I'm going to become
a clown now. it starts costing me my life.
When the pain of acting doesn't match the pay. And you know what
you get when people hate you? Zilch. You know how many people
take care of you when they're trying to burn you on a stake?
None. You know what it looks like when congregations and pastors
around your own community lie and bear false witness about
you? When your own family tells everybody you're a You're a fool. Because you believe that the
Word of God alone and Christ alone, for the glory of God alone,
by faith alone, grace alone, is the pillars on which you stand. It cost you. The act is over. They left from among us because
they were not of us. No matter what came out of their
mouth, no matter how good, no matter how sound, no matter how
powerful, What they said is, they were not of us. What about
those people who seem to have gone away? Well, we pray that
if they are in Christ that He would bring them to them. We
exhort them, we warn them, we admonish them. If we find that they are not
in Christ by their own admission, then we pray for God to save
them and we evangelize them. His power in suffering establishes
our hope, does it not? What was the hope of Jesus Christ?
The cross? No. The resurrection. How can you
be raised to life if you're not dead first? For if a grain falls
into the soil, what does Jesus say? And what? Dies. Then it brings forth life. We've
got grain buckets at home somewhere. We've had since Katie with the
baby. I don't know where they are, but if we're ever hit with
zombies, we can make some bread. Until that grain goes into the
ground and dies and germinates, it does not bring forth life.
Friends, we live because we've been put to death. Our flesh
is dead. How is it dead? It died with
Christ. How do we have hope? Because we're being raised to
life. We share in the suffering. And
the power of God in our suffering establishes our hope. We share
in Christ's suffering so we know then we will also share in His
glory. And I'll leave us with this. Friends, being the church
is not being a compact people with a contract. Being the church is being a community
of faith. Being the church, being the body of Christ. Last night,
my left big toe was cramping. That's your fault. Mike's fault. Unloading a truck. I don't know
if I stepped on it by accident. All of a sudden I laid in the
bed and all I could feel was that toe. Every time my heart beat, the
toe. I've got arthritis in other joints.
I didn't know your toes could hurt. I don't know what is going
on. Here's how most people treat
the body of Christ. It's like if I got up and cut
my toe off and threw it in the toilet and flushed it to spite
it. That toe is irritating, I can't
sleep, can't let the covers touch it. I don't know what's going
on, but it's in my way and I'm not willing to work with it.
Pop! Plop it off. We don't do that to our body.
We don't do that to our body. If we can't forgive and forbear,
how is God forgiving us? I think that that's the majority
of where our suffering is going to come from, beloved, is putting
up with each other. Y'all laughing because it's true.
Don't look though, somebody may not know. Our suffering is going
to come when we try to partner with people and get more people
involved in the actual work of ministry and the world around
us and our community goes, look at what they are doing, look
at them. Look what they're doing. It's bad. We're a community. And come pain,
or come joy, we're going to have joy. Calamity that God sends
for the sake of our sanctification. He sends on His people so that
we might be sanctified, so that our glorification would be understood,
so that the suffering of Christ might be understood. And the
same calamity comes on the world, the lost. And they walk around
going, what's the point? We know the point, church. And
the point is that we can praise Christ in the midst. That we
can boast of Christ in the midst of it all. And I want us to begin
to pray that God will make us a boastable people. Do you know
what it's going to cost? Suffering. I know all of you. And I know that all of your suffering,
it's not worthless. It's worthy of boast. How? Oh,
James, he really pulled through. No, James did nothing but squall
and cry. Christ, my strength, did it all. There's a place you can apply
Philippians 4.13. In the midst of my suffering
with nothing, Christ is my everything. Do you believe that today? Is
your trust and your faith in Jesus Christ? Are you here this
morning out of obligation to a spiritual thing, or are you
here this morning because you love Christ and His people? Believe
on Christ this day. Be alive. Be joyful. Be boastful. Let's pray. Father, we praise You for Your
mercy and Your kindness. Lord, we pray for everyone that's
with us today, for those who did not make it as we prayed
before, that they would find time to come and hear this message
that they may track with us as a people, as a family, Lord,
help us to continually be mindful that our suffering is worth something,
that it's not worthless, that it's not something we should
look away from, but Father, we should endure it, walk into it,
because we are strengthened by Jesus who gives us His grace. Father, as we continue in this
letter, we pray that it would be effectual in our lives, that
we would transform into the likeness of Your Son Jesus Christ, that
we would have intimacy that only You could employ. Father, we pray for those who
may be here this day and feel the call of Your Spirit to believe
on Christ, Lord. Would You work that in them in
such a mighty way that they cry to You, not just this moment
for salvation, but every day of their lives. And we praise
You for Your glorious mercy and love toward us through Jesus
Christ, the Son, for whom we live and by whom we have been
created and for for whom we have been created. In His name we
pray, Amen.