You might think it odd that I
would take three weeks to close this letter out. And if you look
at what's left in verse 25 of chapter five, we see this written. Brothers, pray for us. Greet
all the brothers with a holy kiss. I put you under oath before
the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. I mean, you think,
okay, he's closed it out. We get it. Pray for us. Kiss
each other when you see each other. Read this letter. Grace
be with you. Sayonara. Till next time. 2 Thessalonians. I guess that's
the sequel. And you might say, well, I get
what he's saying there, but I want to challenge us in our thinking
like that. Do we? As I said last week, as Paul
sort of gives this doxology in verse 23, now may the God of
peace, and not just doxology, but he says that and proclaims
that as God's Word, that God alone will do the work that God
has begun. God will see to it that the people,
the Christians of the Church of Thessalonica, will be sanctified. God will see to it that the people
who are called by His name, who are empowered by the Gospel to
believe, who are filled and sealed with the Spirit, surely will
stand blameless in the day of Jesus Christ. Because this is
the last opportunity He may have. to express what He wants to say,
to charge them with His final words. And as we spoke last week,
we looked at the idea that He was probably wanting to, in some
sense, put everything together and charge them one last time
with the expression of application of everything else that He's
taught them. And so today, I'll show you just how that looks.
Now last night, I was part of a three-hour, 28-minute service. I was asked back in June to speak
at a community-wide unity service on the topic of unity. I was
told I would be one of several pastors preaching, and that I
had to keep it to 20 minutes. Well, there were six of us, six
people, and 20 minutes times six is two hours. Singing, celebration,
offering. That was interesting. I'll tell
you after service how that looked. And the Lord was faithful. The
Lord was faithful that the word of God was preached. And not
just by me. And that's a little arrogant
to say, well, I know my pastor preached it correctly. That doesn't
always ring true. I thought about it just last
night as I was laying in the bed trying to get back to sleep.
after my daughter woke me up at 115 with a fever. I said, you know, if people start
looking at everything that I've ever preached, and there are
430 sermons roughly that have been cataloged and put online
for perpetuity, unless sermon audio dies and then they're all
gone. But there's 430 sermons over there. That's eight, nine
years of teaching. And that's just what I've put
up, which is mainly Sunday. That doesn't count all the other
midweek services. When we were in California, I
taught four days a week and taught two classes two nights a week.
I mean, it's a lot of teaching. I had more time. But I guarantee you, if you start
and you just go into that first few weeks of Hebrews that I started
preaching in 2007, July and August of 2007 there
in the East Bay. I guarantee you from then to
now you'll find many heresies. Many heresies! And probably if
you keep listening you'll find many heresies. What is a heresy?
A heresy is a bad word. I mean, it really means something
bad. I mean, it's not something you want. You don't like how
I'm a heretic. I mean, you know, it's just like saying how high
I'm a moron for those of you who follow my blog. You didn't get it, so you don't
read it. Anyway, that joke failed. Let me write that down. But a heresy is a blasphemous
truth. It's not even a truth, it's a
false truth. It's to take something that has truth and to twist it
in such a way that it becomes a lie. And it's a damnable thing
in some circumstances. And I thought about that. I said,
well, maybe I need to go and listen to all my sermons again and tear
down the ones that, no, that's disingenuine. I like the garbage
being there. And it sort of rung in my ears.
And I thought, if it wasn't 2 a.m., I'd tweet this so I could remember
it. That's why I use Twitter for, so I can remember these
things, because my brain doesn't function normally. And I thought,
though you may be able to find heresies, by the Lord's grace,
you will never find a false gospel. Though you may find error often,
by the Lord's grace, I will never preach a false gospel. So as I sat there last night
in that service, I thought to myself, how much error have I
heard? A lot. And I'm sure when they
heard me speak, most of them thought, that's not right. But
God was faithful to bring the gospel through all six speakers. And it was sound. It was unbelievable. And there were whites in there,
and blacks in there, and Latinos in there, and even some mixed
denominations. I was probably the only Baptist
in the room. You know, what'd you come here to do? I opened
up my Bible and crossed my legs. And everybody else jumped up,
stomped my feet! And I'm thinking, uh-oh, I did the wrong thing,
sorry. What'd you come here to do? Clap
your hands! Oh gosh, I missed that one too.
And that's just little things that are different about people.
Different about cultures, different about liturgy, if you will. But there's something that we
spoke of there and something that the Lord put on my heart
way back in the beginning of this year, January, the second
week of January, when I began to preach this stuff in the community
because I hear it every day. We've got to be unified. We've
got to be together. We've got to be one. In the definition
of unity, the sum of the whole, we're one thing. We're not divided. We're not in parts. We're not
in pieces. We're not a bunch of pieces in
the same box. We're one piece. That's what unity means. And
so when I read this letter to the Thessalonians, when I see
the overarching purpose for which Paul wrote and taught by the
power and authority of the Spirit of God, I see unity. I see it here. I see it in Colossians. I see it in Galatians. I see
it everywhere. Unity in spirit. You mean one,
one spirit, one God, one Lord, one baptism, one faith. There's
no such thing as a plethora of doctrinal statements on an issue.
If one of them is correct, then all the rest of them are wrong.
You can't be almost right. You can't be almost unified.
You can't be almost together. If my head's almost on my body,
I'm decapitated. If my arm's just a little loose,
it's worthless. If I'm walking together in unity
with you, I am not only one part of your whole, or a part of a
whole, though we are different members as Paul would say, but
we make up the body. And I propose, because the Scripture
compels me to believe this, that there is no such thing as unity
in the world except those who are in Christ. And those who are not in Christ.
So there are two unified fronts. The world and everyone in it
of every nationality, creed, religion, faith, belief, worldview,
economic standard, or you name it. And then the body of Christ. So there are two holes that exist
in the cosmos. The whole of the Bride of Christ,
who by faith has believed in the work of God in redemption
through the sacrifice of Jesus the Son, has a whole in unity. And everybody else, with all
their differences, are still part of the whole in unity and
condemnation. I say this often. I preach it
as often as the text will allow me to. But friends, we are a
body. And the local church has been
established by the Lord so that we exist as a body. We don't
come to this place. We don't come to the program
of Grace Truth Church for a service. We come to worship together,
to grow into intimacy with each other, because God has made us
intimate with the Father through the blood of the cross. We've been redeemed. We've been
atoned for. We have been propitiated. God
has been propitiated. He is satisfied, is the better
way to say that. Christ is our propitiation, John
and Paul would say, whom God put forward to display His righteousness
as we see in Romans 3. And so the unity of the church
is only true if there is intimacy within the church. Did you hear
this? We can believe the exact same
doctrine. We can believe the 1689, even with its similarity
to Molinism as we saw Tuesday. Was it Article 3.2 or something
like that? We can believe in the canons
of Dort, We can believe in the Westminster Confession. We can
hold to the Cambridge Declaration. We can stamp our walls with the
solas of the Reformation. We can read Luther. We can read
Calvin. We can read all of the great
men of God, like Whitefield and Edwards and Spurgeon. We can
agree with everything that we say that Paul believes. And we
can be in lockstep and say that's unity, but without intimacy,
it's just academics. without intimacy, without maturing,
growing together, without an opportunity to forbear and to
give and to hurt and to weep and to rejoice together, without
the opportunity for correction and instruction and rebuke, without
the opportunity for praise and continued sharpening. We are
just a bunch of heads walking around with the right answers
and no power. Church, every day that goes by
in my life, no matter what I'm doing, whether it's ripping out
plumbing for the third time to put that second toilet in. I've
got pictures of it. No matter what it is, I shudder
often. What are you talking about? I
have fear in my flesh. I have fear in my flesh for several
reasons. Number one, I've never seen God
so miraculously and powerfully bring a body together like He's
brought grace through together. Supernaturally. Powerfully through
the Word of God, through prayer, by the Spirit. I've never seen
Him. There's always been a stick. There's always been a gimmick.
There's always been something. In my tenure in ministry, there's
always been something to call people to. Hey, we got the right
truth, but man, we've got a lot of classes you can take. See,
that gets folks. I mean, that gets people. I'm
not even talking about my church growth days, the megachurch days.
I'm talking about them. That's a whole different conversation. But just look at it in California.
Oh, we've got this conference you can come attend. Nothing
wrong with it. I love being able to sit around
the table with people like Mark Dever and James White and Eddie
Dalcor and people like that who can come and for free sit and
teach for a week. Praise God, they feed the flock.
But it's something that I've always, oh we can invite people
to come to that, nothing wrong with that. Oh and then they'll
come and then they'll stay. It's just a hook. So there's
always been something in the back of our minds that would
get people interested in looking our way. What is it now? What's interesting about us?
What do we have to offer? In the world's eyes, nothing.
In American Christianity, nothing. What is there that draws any
of you to come and sit in these seats? What is it? It's the Word. And so now, as
we stand before the Lord, we look into the face of Christ
through the lens of Scripture, and we look at each other and
we think, we've got nothing but Christ drawing us together. And
it broke my heart that first year when only, oh goodness,
one, two, I don't think there's three representatives
in here, family-wise, that were with us in that first year, that
first day. There are a lot of families who
bailed out quick after that first few months. There was two families
that bailed out after the first week. And I called them up and
I said, where are you going? We've been talking for six months.
Where are you going? You said you want to be a part of a church
plan. We can't talk, we can't listen
to 60 minutes of teaching. I'm like, really? What movie
did you watch last night? Oh, you should tell, you should
watch it. It was great. How long was it? I don't know.
Let me tell you, it was two hours. And you paid for the ticket and
you didn't want to get up to use the bathroom, so you had to get
a wheelchair to leave. I'm not trying to be mean about
it, but it hurt my feelings. And these people who I thought
would be anchors were just scaffold. I thought, that's terrible. I
thought they were going to stick with us. But ultimately what
happened is they wanted something else besides the Word. They wanted
something else besides intimacy with other Christians. They wanted
something to put their name on. They wanted something to be able
to tell people, well, I do this at my church. I serve this way
at my church. Jesus Christ, whose God did not
even do that. He became a slave, obedient to
death on the cross. He did not even exalt Himself
when given ample opportunity. And yet, that's what happens.
So I shudder. I think, wow. God is doing things amongst us
that I have never really witnessed holistically and purely. Ever. I've seen it. But never purely. And so that scares me. Because
it's unknown. You can't control it. It's also
scary because it is my responsibility to watch my heresies. Be careful that my pet theologies
don't come across this pulpit as doctrine. Or my inferences. So if it's
not contextual, if it's not there, if it's not right here, don't
listen to it. It also is somewhat fearful because
I recognize that when God puts together the church, all I read
in the New Testament is that pain and suffering comes. Pain
and suffering. Pain and suffering. Pain and
suffering. Persecution from without. Persecution
from within. Persecution from within here
and within here. We hear the lies of the enemy.
We hear the lies of the devil. We hear the lies of our own flesh.
And we're fed these things and we have to learn to put to death
those things that are in the heart by studying in the mind
the things of God. And so as we see the close of
this letter, I can imagine Paul's quiver. I mean, James Tiffins doesn't
have anything on Paul. He doesn't have any inclination as to what
it was like being an apostle. I mean, I can see it, I can visualize
it, I can try to put myself in a feeling there of empathy, and
I go, wow, Paul really had it hard, but I can only really experience
that which I've experienced. Now think about what Paul must
have been going through as he wrote this letter, and all throughout
as we see different places where he just longed to see these people
face to face. Where he cried to the Lord, and
he cried to the Lord in prayer, and he cried to the Lord in angst,
and he cried to the Lord for deliverance, not of himself from
prison, but that his word would surely plant and grow and mature
a people in Thessalonica. to the praise of His glorious
grace. How horrified he must have been
to consider the reality that some of the people who believed
during the preaching of the gospel to the plenty of that church
actually walked away from the faith. How when we see in the writing
to the Hebrews, we see over and over again one of the foundational
tests of those who are surely saved, empowered and transformed
is that they have a desire to be with God's people in worship
and God's people in life and God's people and problems and
God's people in praise and all of the different things that
we do in life. And all throughout them, even
though we may need to give a hand to this brother or sister for
this, or give some money for this, or give some food here,
some clothes here, great, ultimately those things are temporal, they
fall away, they fade, the moth eats, the rust destroys, the
stomach digests, and it goes away. But what doesn't go away
is the Word of God in us. And what secures our sanctification
is the Word of God in us. What establishes us as a rock
is the Word of God in us. What seals us in a powerful way
to have a love that is supernatural is the Word of God in us. So my prayer is that all of you
as we continue, as we start to get to the place where we can
taste a little bit of something to show somebody, like a building
or a school, Lord, have mercy. Keep ourselves from idols. I've often said and often prayed,
and not as much as I used to pray, that the Lord would bring
great calamity, great persecution. Because every
time I look at the pages of Holy Writ, I see great revival and
expansion of the gospel, salvation and grace extending to more and
more people, as Paul would say, which results in thanksgiving
to God when they suffer together. So as Paul closes this letter,
that is his prayer, that the Word of God would stay and would
cement into the hearts and souls of that church. and that they
would heed the Word that is written to them, that the grace of God
and the Lord Jesus Christ would be with them through the hearing
of His letter. But friends, it will not happen
if we are not pursuing intimacy. If we're not pursuing intimacy
as a body, connected as a whole, we are not unified. And if we're unified on one thing,
but not intimacy, but not intimate in all things, friends, when
that one thing that we think is our unity starts to shake,
and it's going to shake. It's going to shake. You don't
think doctrinal problems are going to shake us, it's going
to shake us. And a lot of times we sit in
the chairs, and from a position of cognitive Reception, oh yeah,
I believe in that, but when we put it into practice, we're like,
oh no, we're not doing that. Right doctrine produces right
living. The truth of God's Word enables us and compels us to
live out those things. And when the idols of life and
the idols of ministry and the idols of faith and the idols
of religion and the idols of Christianity, the idols of reformation,
the idols of doctrine and theology and everything else comes up
and starts tapping on our shoulders, we actually are able to say then,
together, hey, let's put to death these idols. It is so convoluted in our world
today that I actually heard someone say yesterday that we do not
need doctrine. in the local church. That was
an error. I'm thinking, cut my tongue out
so I can breathe. But it's a misunderstanding of
the term. Doctrine is teaching. Everything
we've learned is doctrinal. It's teaching. It's what the
Bible wants us to learn. It's what God wants us to learn
through the Bible, through the scripture, the teaching of God,
who he is, how he works. who we are, how He loves us. And so as we look at this verse
25, look with me. Brothers, pray for us. I mean, there's not a lot there. The syntax of that is very clear.
Subject, brothers. Verb, pray. The object of the
prayer is us. Hear these apostles from the
mouth of Paul. It's telling these brothers,
and the word there includes sisters. It's like mankind. We don't have
to say mankind and womankind. Brothers, sisters, pray for us. Now, is there a treatise here
about why they need prayer? Is there a context? Is there
a side note? Man, would not a scribe put something in the margins
that we can debate over in our higher criticism? That we could
at least have some explanation as to why Paul needed prayer
and to what end and for what purpose? Could somebody find
that text for me? It doesn't matter. Because in
the very phrase, brothers pray for us, in the context of all
of this that has been written, we understand several things.
And this is why I want you to understand that exposition is
not commentary. Exposition is not a critical
parsing of the verbs. Exposition is not an outline
of the text. Exposition is expressing the
meaning of the text to its original hearers. Now we use the word
brother and sister so often that I find myself using it with everybody
I meet. God comes up, cusses me out,
and says, all right, brother, I forgive you. Brother, wait
a minute, he's probably not my brother. It comes across just
that quick. You can't say, you know, sister
to every woman. You can't say brother to every
man because that is an intimate relationship that is possible
only through the gospel of Jesus. Christ suffered and died so that
we might be siblings with nothing in common but the blood of our
Savior. Christ suffered on the cross of Calvary, so that when
Paul would write the word brothers, these people who were so far
away from Judaism, so far away from the oracles of God, as Paul
would write in Ephesians chapter 2, who were far off, without
any hope, with no God, to be called a brother was a
big deal. See, in our vernacular, we just
sort of brush over that. Yeah, brother's praying for us.
I've got to pray for people. That's what the Bible's saying, pray
for people. It is and it isn't. Who is saying pray for us? Who
is he talking to? He's talking to an infantile,
orphaned people who lost everything because they believed powerfully
the Word of God and followed Christ. So much so, that without
email, Facebook, texts, vidcasts, and everything else, that the
news traveled hundreds of miles. That the witness statement of
the transformation of the Thessalonians was so powerful that when the
apostles went to the other regions, And they begin to show up and
they begin to preach. People say, is this what changed
the Thessalonians? Is this the message that transformed
these people? Paul said, you're my brothers.
You're my sisters. And Paul's concern was for this
church to stay in the faith, for this city, and all the Christians
of this city. Not the particular congregation
that met at John's house, or Paul's house, or Chloe's house
like in Corinth, or anybody else's house. Those are not really the
right names, but simple. But all the Christians there.
There's one faith. There's one unified reality. There's one unified truth, because
there's only one God, and there's only one way to that one God,
and His name is Jesus, the Christ, the Son, the God-Man. Brothers, it could easily have
said there in closing, brothers, I will continue to pray for you
as I've said that I have been, and will do, and have done, I
will continue to pray for you and your weakness. I will continue
to pray for you and your fear. I will continue to pray for you
and your persecution. So steadfast, you little children. Steadfast, my beloved spiritual
family. Steadfast. Be steadfast. and stand in the confession of
your hope. I'm praying for you that your
joy will be full. I'm praying for you that you
will be filled with all the fullness of God. I'm praying for you that
you will continue in brotherly love. I'm praying for you, therefore
be encouraged. As Paul has already said already
through this letter. Be encouraged. I'm praying for you. I love you. The Lord be with you. Amen. People are like, man, Paul is
so strong. Man, I wish I could pray like
Paul. You can if you're put in prison. You can if you lose everything.
You can if you sacrifice the entire way of life that you've
been raised from a child to live in and turn it away. You can
if you lay down your ethnicity and your nationality and your
idols and that which you think is utmost important to you, and
it's nothing but Christ and all that He is, and everything that
He's ever promised to be, and you. We can pray like Paul. But friends, we pray around those
things which are precious to us. We don't pray over them. We don't plow through them. There's
an idol. I'm going to pray around them.
We might even thank God. Oh, God, I thank You for this.
May I use it for Your glory as I snuggle with it. But Paul didn't pray that way
at all. Paul didn't close his letter out reminding them of
the amazing prayers that he prayed for these people. Paul said,
Oh my dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, by the blood
of His mercy, pray for me. Pray for me. That's intimate. That's an intimate expression.
Don't believe me? Look at verse 26. Greet all the
brothers with a holy kiss. In all of my life, there's been
only one man kissed me in the mouth, and I liked to punch him. His name's Tom. When you see
my wife, ask her about the guy who'd like to kiss folks. She'll
tell you his name. And it wasn't one of these, I
mean, he'd grab your face and pull you in like this. And I'm
like, that is gross. Stubble is gross. How you ladies
put up with it? I'm like, dude, you're gonna
get shot. This is the South, stop. But this brother kissed everybody.
Some of the men in the church, especially one of our worship
leaders at that particular time, he didn't like that at all. And he would
be like, guitar in his hand, like kicking at him and stuff.
Get away from me. And he'd just wait till he turned
around and he'd tap him on the shoulder. Get him! Right in the
middle of practice. He loved to kiss people. I don't
know, he's a little weird. He probably still does. I should look him
up and see if he's still kissing people. But that's the only time. And it
was very odd. He didn't kiss me anymore. I
told him I'd punch him in his throat. In the name of Jesus, love you. But that's intimate. It was a
custom then, you kiss like shaking hands is today, or wait a minute,
we bump because we don't want to spread germs, but yet we're
all still getting sick. A hug. Last night as the final
pastor got up and preached, he was talking about loving people
at cost. I'm sitting there on the front
row with my Bible, this Bible, which I don't like to wrinkle.
I know that sounds so silly, but have you ever had a wrinkled
Bible page? It never lays down again. It's like you open it
up to Genesis and John flips over. Well, he comes out and
he puts his hand out like he's going to shake my hand and says,
you know, I'll be willing to say in public, this is my brother
and I love you. And I went and grabbed it. He
snatched me all up out of the chair and everything. My Bible
goes, and I'm like, I'm not going to wrinkle it. He didn't care, he just wanted
to show people how intimate the body of Christ ought to be. It
was a good illustration at the cost of a page or three. Idle. Idle. Greet all the brothers with a
holy kiss. Pray for us. Please, pray for us. This mutual sanctification that
Paul talked about as we looked at last week. I mean this supernatural
complete sanctification. Paul pushes this to the point
that he wants the church to see. He will surely do it because
he is faithful. And in verse 25 and 26 and 27
and 28, he paints a picture that is not easy to see until you
see it. And what's here in this text
is a mutual intimacy centered on the teaching of God's faithfulness
in sanctifying them through Christ. And so Paul is saying, now may
the God of peace sanctify you completely, individually, as
a body, mutually, in this way, and also pray for us in this
way. that God would do the same. Love
each other in this way. Greet the brothers with a holy
kiss. Have intimacy with each other. What's strange in our culture,
especially in America, is that we seem to be so private. We think our faith is a... We
bought the lie of Charles Finney. Personal faith in Jesus Christ. My Jesus, my salvation, my gospel
for God so loved James. I was taught to do that. Change the plural pronouns to
your name. That makes sense. I'm not saying
that our faith isn't personal, that God hasn't saved us individually.
But God has not saved us individually for us individually. He saved
us individually for the body's sake. For His name's sake. And God is not glorified with
the one. I'm tired of hearing, if there
was only one that God wanted to save, Christ would have come
and... That's absurd. God never intended to save one
man. God intended to save His people. Plural. The people of the world. Not just Jews. Jews were just
a small, temporary picture of the church. Nobody. Worship in the moon. Now you're
a people. What did Abram ever do to become a people? Nothing. Unbelief. That's what he did.
And God changed his heart. God commanded him, he obeyed.
God drew him out of darkness and placed him into light. Friends,
it is one of the blind, dark delusions of the devil to think
that our Christian faith is made for us to walk in our house with
our family. to sit in our easy chair with
our Bible and our laptop and our books and our desk or wherever
we might be and have our devotion. That is not what God has saved
us to. But yet that is pretty much the
mainstay of every Christian person that I know in the world today. We shouldn't do devotion. That's
not what I said. I said that's not what God has saved us to. If that study and for those of
you who like Oswald Chambers What is it my utmost for his
highest Little book like 50 trillion copies. You can find them everywhere
trash cans. You find them in trash cans. Seriously. I've seen
them in trash cans Not the Gideon Bibles. I've seen them in track.
There's so many of them if what you read in that little 30 seconds
and doesn't empower you to go out and invest in the life of
someone else. It's worthless. It's worthless. It's worthless. You can't praise
God for His glorious grace in creating us to be a people intimately
and be with nobody intimately. If we're a body, we're together.
And you might say, well, how am I supposed to do that? I don't
know. God's gifted you to do it. God's gifted you somehow
to invest in the lives of others, and God has commanded all of
us explicitly, commanded to make disciples of all nations. Paul has shown us several times,
we are all responsible to be teaching the Bible to each other.
We are all responsible to help each other raise our children
in the Lord. We're all responsible to rebuke each other when we
walk in sin. Friends, if your sin comes to
my desk, it's gone on way too long. If you come to me and say,
my brother or sister will not listen to me, it's gone on way too long. Think
about it. We ought to be so engaged with
each other as we are going about our lives that God works in us
and through us the teaching and the sharpening and the encouragement
and the rebuke together. Because our families are not
eternal. When I die, I'm nobody's daddy. And I'm nobody's husband. Hallelujah. And when my family dies, or the
Lord takes them before they die, they're no longer my children,
she's no longer my wife, but forever, by the grace of God
and His mercy, they will be my brothers and sisters. So the
closest thing to eternal relationships that we have in this earth is
this. And many of those that we call
family won't even be with us in eternity because they refuse
to believe. It's taught language now. No,
it's Paul's language. It's the language of the cross.
It's a messed up ecclesiology. Even the reformers didn't get
it. Calvin ruined this. He did. There's no intimacy in
Geneva. Mainly because he had to have
a guard to keep him alive. Guards. An army. Maybe. But we missed... Grace Truth cannot miss this,
y'all. It is the reason that I labor every day for your joy
and for your intimacy, so that God our Father is glorified in
it. He's not glorified if 700 of us meet, and we've got six
services in three cities, and we're sharing the gospel in every
orifice of every gas station within a hundred miles. God isn't
glorified if we're not intimate with each other, sharing our
faith together, concerned with each other's growth, helping
each other through this life. That is what gives God glory.
For even pagans preach the right gospel. Where's that, Philippians? Charlatans! He said, look at these wicked
men out here preaching for their own vain glory and their own
greed. And Paul said, let them preach because they got the right
message. Let them preach. It doesn't matter. What happens when the
lost hears the Word of God? What happens when the Gospel
pierces the hearts and minds and souls of a dead man? He seeks
out fellowship, intimate fellowship with the flock of Jesus Christ.
There is no such thing as a healthy sheep living in the woods. It
does not happen. It cannot happen because the
devil will have them for lunch in a short time. Just because we're here doesn't
mean we're intimate. Friends, the close of this letter
shows intimacy is the point of it all. Brothers, pray for us. Why would Paul need prayer? Because he needed sanctification
just like they did. Paul even confesses, I have not
arrived. I've not arrived, not that I've
gained it. I'm the chief of sinners. It's better for me if I die and
go be with Christ, but it's better for your sake that I remain. Why? Because that is where God
is glorified. That the local church continues
to grow. And until the day when God seals judgment, the church
must live as such. But you know why? You know why
we don't like intimacy? This isn't even what I intended
to talk about today, but it's here. You know why we don't like
intimacy? It's because we're fearful that
people will see us for who we really are. In the Garden of
Eden, after Adam and Eve sinned, Adam and Eve sinned. Adam and
Eve sinned. After they sinned, their eyes
were opened. And what does the scripture say?
They saw they were naked. And they were ashamed. Marriage is a microscopic picture
of the macrocosmic reality of Jesus Christ and His church.
And we stand naked before God and unashamed. For there's nothing to be ashamed
of. We stand bare before Him. No matter how we skirt in our
prayers, no matter how fake we are sitting in here this day,
God sees all things. He sees the heart through and
through. He doesn't even have to look. He just knows them. He's
omniscient. Remember, He created us. I was working on a laptop this
weekend. I know every piece of that thing. I can look at that
logic board, barely can see some of it because I don't have a
microscope that I can get up underneath it. And I'm like, okay, that's
what's burned out there. Let's see if I can take that
one off of here and put it here. I know everything about that
thing. And if it starts to make a funny
noise, I know where to go look because I put it together. God put us together. He knows
the intimate realities of our sin, of our heart, our desires,
our falsehoods, our failures. And by His grace and mercy, He's
given us the gospel that we might believe, and He wants us to be
intimate with Him, and being intimate with Him means we're
intimate with each other. One of the primary reasons so
many of us are still bound by sin and problems in our lives,
listen to me, and I use that word lightly, Because we're dead
to sin. We're no longer slaves to sin.
But it seems sometimes, some of us might say, I feel choked
out. I just don't feel like that there is any hope for me in this
thing, in this purpose, in this problem. What's the purpose of
this problem? Where am I? What am I supposed
to do? One of the main reasons that so many of us stay behind
that wall of oppression instead of sitting in the light of freedom
is because we're not telling somebody that we need help. We're not telling at least a
brother or sister in the Lord. I'm not saying, Jesse and I say
this all the time, don't tell everything to everybody, but
tell something to somebody. We need to share our struggles,
confess our sins, come to one another for security, for help,
for prayer, because we love one another. Paul needed prayer. Paul has taught this church,
powerfully and truly, about their position in Christ. He's taught
them about the grace of God, the mercy of God, the sanctification
that comes through Jesus Christ. Paul says he loves them, evidenced
by his teaching to them and his prayers for them. Paul responds
that while they are indeed a unified body, a family of eternal proportions,
they need to also remember him and the apostles in prayer. Why? Well, I didn't go through all
of the New Testament and look at all the places where Paul...
I did, and then I started thinking, this is going to take an hour.
So I just summarized it in some bullets. Paul needed prayer,
as we see evidenced in certain places of Scripture, because
he needed to learn that his wisdom was not wise. Paul needed prayer
so that he would not, as the Proverbs says, lean on his own
understanding. We see that in Philippians. What
shall I do? I'm hard-pressed between the
two. I want to do this, but I feel the Lord wants me to do this.
Pray for me, O church of Thessalonica, that I would stay the course
and do that which is gloriously better for you. That is the body
of Christ. Because believe it or not, when
we die, there's no more ministry. At least I don't believe there
is. I don't see why there'd be a need for it. But now there is, and Paul wanted
wisdom. Paul needed prayer for the endurance
in ministry. Even when things are good, the
attack of the flesh, and the attack of the enemy, and the
attack of everything. I mean, Jesus took His inner three to
the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, please, keep watching.
Pray for me. I am in anguish. I'm bleeding
through my pores. Pray for me. The God-man asked
for prayer. And they fell asleep. Paul needs prayer. The apostles
need prayer for the protection of their lives. For their deliverance. Paul needed prayer for the soundness
of his teaching. Pray that the Word of God would
not be bound. Pray that I would preach that
which is true. Paul needed prayer so that he
would not fall away. Paul needed prayer for his own
sanctification. Paul needed prayer for his personal
needs as he ministered, like he taught in Ephesians and Philippians. Paul needed prayer for his imprisonment. Where's that at? In Acts? Where Peter was let out of prison?
How? An angel let him out. How did
that angel come? The people prayed for Him to
come. Well, why do we need prayer verse
preaching? But why do we need prayer? Well,
how is it if we were to measure ourselves this day, church, listen,
how is our joy? Is it really full? How about
our hope? How about our understanding?
What about our witness? How do people see us? Is a reflection
of righteousness just perfectly in our lives? How about a sharing of our faith?
Do we share our faith? Or do we shut down on our problems?
How about living in holiness? Desire for the Word of God? Friends,
this is the first thing that goes. You hear me? You can leave
church today and argue about what the kids want at Dairy Queen
and you will not pick your Bible up again till Tuesday. It's war. We need prayer. In the flesh, without prayer,
we will wallow into pity. We will wallow into self-reliance. We will wallow into despair. And there's no hope for us. But
the Word of God We must pray for one another. Just as Paul
asked for prayer, we need prayer all the more. And we need prayer
all the more as Grace Truth Church because God has put us together
in power. So the enemy is coming against
us in power. The enemy is coming against us?
Yes. I'm going to hand out, I was
going to say postcards, I'm going to hand out notebooks and we
can all write down everything we're experiencing right now.
Physical, mental, emotional, marital, financial, just every
time. Give ten reasons why it would
be easier just to quit Christ. Because before I walked with
the Lord, none of this junk was in my life, what's going on?
But I counted all his loss. The priceless gain of knowing
Christ, our Lord. How about laying down our pride?
Several of you, the brothers, this past week, we've talked
about that many times. Pride. You know, pride is almost
like the root of every sin I have. How about devotion to the body?
Not your physical body. I mean, that would be something
too. Devotion to the body. How's our devotion to the church?
How about the death of our selfishness? How's that look? the deliverance
from temptation, the proclamation of the gospel, steadfastness
in faith, obedience to truth, unbridled worship, always being
ready to give a reason for the hope that's within us. This is
powerful. And Paul needed prayer because
he knew that the power of God rests in the prayers of his people.
And though Paul could pray for himself, it wasn't sufficient.
God purposes His church to pray for one another. Paul asks for
prayer because he knows that God alone can affect the outcome
of his plans and his situations. And he knows that prayer can
even affect the outcome of his own prayers. God hears, God receives
and answers the cry of His children every single time. He alone sent
the angel to rescue Peter. That's in Acts chapter 12, by
the way. Because the people pray that God would deliver them from
prison. Prayer is powerful because the authority of prayer is that
we are one in Jesus Christ. If I need to put on my shoes,
I put on my shoes. I don't wait for my feet to go
get them. If we pray for one another, then we're expressly
submitting to the power of God as our Father in every aspect
of our lives. But friends, you know what's
really weird? is that we don't have sometimes enough intimacy
with each other to know how to pray. And that comes with time. It's not going to happen overnight.
You can't fake that. You can't create life groups. That's what
we used to call them. When we assigned 800 people,
we're going to assign every 20 people a life group, depending
on where they live, or how old they were, or what color their
hair was, or whether they had the theology beards or not. Who else? A couple of you. You can't fake it. You can't
assimilate people into intimacy. It just has to be the work of
God. And the work of God here, as
we see this text, is continually working intimacy. Paul knew that
prayer was needed because it is powerful. And friends, believe
it or not, active prayer is contrary to complaint. Listen to that again. Active
prayer is in contrast to complaining. Say that again? Active prayer is in contrast
to complaining. Because what do we do? We complain
about our problems, we complain about our circumstances, we complain
about our people, we complain about the heat, we complain about
our sickness, we complain about our ailments, instead of praying.
And one surefire way of knowing of working and knowing that God
is working in me is when I feel more pressed to pray for you
than for myself. Nothing's changed. You want to
pray for me? Pray for endurance in my flesh.
My body is hurting. I hurt all the time. All the
time. It's constant. But I find myself
very seldom ever praying for that, because I want to pray
for you. Some of you need prayer. And
we don't know it. You need to tell us how we can
pray for you. How do we believe in power of prayer if we don't
exercise it? We should pray for those, as
Jesus says, who persecute us. We should trust the Lord to deal
with those who disagree with us. Friends, if there's never
any disagreement within this body, we're not intimate. We're not intimate. Why is it
that oftentimes when I have marriage counseling sessions with couples,
I can't believe he would hurt me so badly. How can my husband
hurt me? Or how can my wife hurt me? Or
how can my children hurt me so bad? Because you spend all the
time with them. And the new wears off, that new car smell goes
away. It's actually bad for you. It's
gas, it's off gassing from chemicals. But it's just like, it smells
good. Now honeymoon's over. The trash can's overflowing.
There's a boot in the living room. And all of a sudden, you're like,
the toilet paper's on the wrong side. You pull it, and it all
goes in the floor. And you're like, woman, please! That's why they hurt us. That's
why they irritate us, because we're with them. So if we're
going to have that in our normal lives, in our homes, we're going
to have that in the church. But the gospel is powerful enough
as we pray for God to not only work in the lives of each other,
we also pray that God will give us the heart to love each other.
Brothers, Sisters, that we would look in each other's eyes and
we would consider each other more often than we consider ourselves.
That we would pray because we have an affection that God has
given. Don't try to muster love for
each other in your own doing. It will not work. I taught this to children this
past Wednesday at a chapel of a local school. 300 kids. How many of you love food? You
know, everybody raised their hand. And then I started naming
some food, hot dogs, pizza, everybody's excited. Asparagus, about one
kid raised his hand and then spitballs started hailing. I
mean, you know, nerd. We can't. We don't love those
things. We enjoy what they do for us. We like the taste and
how it makes us feel. We love candy. I said, who loves
candy? And everybody, I mean, it's like
they just like came up out of their seats about four inches
and levitated. And I said, you don't love candy. I said, would
you die for candy? Would you die for a pizza pizza?
You die if you eat pizza. You wouldn't die for peace. Would
you die for your spouse? Would you die for your children?
Would you die for your neighbor? Would you die for your church? Now
it's really cult talk. Have this mind among you, which
is yours in Christ Jesus. Though he was equal with God,
he did not take equality with God, something to be grasped.
What does it say? But made himself a slave, obedient unto death,
death on a cross. There's no greater love than
this, that a man would lay down his life for a brother. Church, we can't
do that. God can do that in us. We've
got to pray for each other. If you don't pray anything else,
pray for God to seal us, and secure us, and to preserve us,
and that we would pray for each other, and that we would love
each other, so that when we get together, there is such an awe
over the majesty and the power of God's grace, that we can't
explain it. Prayer is needed, and it's powerful. And finally, as we see there,
as he talks about kissing and brothers, this intimacy, prayer
is very personal. When I do marriage preparation
with couples, I warn them about doing Bible study and prayer
together before they're married. Because it creates an incredible
intimacy. that is safe in the confines
of the congregation, but is not safe when you're not married.
It creates an intimacy that can be... I'm not saying not to do
it, but you've just got to be careful. You don't go to each
other's apartment at 11 o'clock at night and do Bible study. Go to Starbucks. You know, go
to the church, go to somewhere else. Be careful, because it's
intimate. And in the marriage relationship,
that intimacy has its place In the church, it's eternal. So
prayer is very personal. The intimacy of the church is
one of the simplest, I believe, but yet most powerful expressions
of God's grace. Without intimacy, we make God
a liar. Because the Word of God teaches
that we ought to always be considering each other intimately, prayerfully
intimately, encouraging intimately, rebuking intimately. You don't
just walk down to some guy you see on the street and say, hey,
you smell like marijuana. Let me rebuke you. That's not
how it works. I mean, you may. It's your face, your teeth, your
nose. Paul has said this. Listen to
some of these words. I won't give you the references,
but I've got them listed out here all the way through chapter 1 through
here of Thessalonians. We give thanks to God always
for you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers. And you became
imitators of us in the Lord, you received the word with much
affliction. with the joy of the Spirit, so that you became an
example to all the believers in Macedonia and the Achaia.
So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share
with you not only the Gospel of God, but also our own selves,
because you had become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers,
our labor and toil. We work night and day that we
might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaim to you
the Gospel of God. You are witnesses in God also how holy and righteous
and blameless was our conduct toward you. For you know how,
like a father with his children, We exhorted each one of you and
encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of
God. But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short
time in person, not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly
and with great desire to see you face to face because we wanted
to come to you, I, Paul, again and again, but Satan hindered
us. For what is our joy and our hope and our crown of boastment
before the Lord Jesus at His coming? Is it not you? For you
are our glory and our joy. Therefore, when we could stand
it no longer, we were willing to be left behind alone in Athens,
and we sent Timothy our brother and God's co-worker in the gospel
of Christ to establish and exhort you in the faith that no one
be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that
we are destined for this. But now that Timothy has come
to us from you and brought us the good news of your faith and
love and reported that you always, listen, remembered us kindly
and longed to see us as we long to see you, for this reason,
brothers, in all of our distress and in all of our affliction,
we have been comforted about you. For what thanksgiving can
we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for
your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night
and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking
in your faith? Now may our God and Father Himself
and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you, and may the Lord
make you increase and abound in love for one another and for
all as we do for you, so that He may establish your hearts
blameless in holiness before our God the Father. and the coming
of our Lord Jesus with all the saints. For this is the will
of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual
immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own
body in holiness and honor, not in the passions of lust like
the Gentiles who do not know God. See that no one transgresses
and wrongs his brother in this manner, because the Lord is an
avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and
Solomon warned you. Now concerning brotherly love,
You have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves
have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed
is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia.
But we urge you, do this more and more, and to aspire to live
quietly, to mind your own affairs, to work with your hands. Therefore,
encourage one another with these words, in the context there of
chapter 4, is that they were grieving over the death of those
beloved saints who were part of their church. Encourage one
another and build one another up, just as you were doing. We
ask you then, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and
are over you in the Lord. Esteem them highly in love because
of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. Admonish the idle.
Encourage the faint-hearted. Help the weak. Be patient with
them all. See that no one repays evil for evil, but always seek
to do good to one another and to everyone." I could go on.
What do you see there? What's the common flow? The stream that is throughout
all this letter is the intimacy of affection that is continually
rising up and producing itself by the mercy of God for these
people. That is what they were known
for. Friends, if we are known for
the most sound theology and the most astute academics, if we
can read the Greek backwards in a mirror, But we have not
love, we're nothing. If we manifest every spiritual
gift that has ever been made known to man, and we can fly
in the sky like Superman, we can blow out forest fires with
our breath and give glory to God in doing so, but we have
not love, we are nothing. God has given us love. And the
bottom level of that affection is that we pray for each other. That's the starting gate. That's
the line before the gun. That is where we begin. Pray
for each other. Pray for each other. Friends, these are words of intimacy,
not administration. See how backwards the church
of our culture has it? See how backwards congregations
have just taken and ever so softly and ever so slowly and ever so
quietly, the Word of God has not become the authority anymore
and all the functions of administry have taken over. If you're busy
on your job, you can't take time to love each other. If you're busy with a job inside
the church, you have no ministry. The church family that loves
each other, prays for each other, and is concerned for each other.
Consider this in closing, that the apostles needed the intimacy
of the local church where they served. They desired the intimacy
of the local church with whom they suffered. The apostles' success hinged
on the prayers of the churches because God purposes prayer through
His people. The church is a loving family,
knowing each other, serving each other for the good of the faith,
for the good of the church, for the growth of the body, to the
fullness of the stature of the maturity of Christ. God, beloved,
is not a collector of people. He's a Father. He doesn't have
individuals shrink-wrapped like action figures in His estate
of glory. He's got a people for His own
glory. And we are part of it. We are part of the body. He's
purchased us as the bride of Christ, His Son, the one true
bride, the one true righteous people. And it requires intimacy,
requires struggle, requires correction. It's a lot of work. It calls
us to be honorable. It requires prayer, giving, face
time, worship, study, and so many more things. So beloved,
I pray that you see what God is doing in our mutual sanctification. First and foremost, that we love
Him, and equal importance, we love each other. Let's pray. May we forever rejoice. May we forever proclaim. Lord, purpose us to pray for
each other. To desire unity. Lord, though it is not natural
in our flesh, Father, it is supernatural in Your will for us as part of
our sanctification. Draw us mutually to the cross. Draw us mutually to the Word.
Draw us mutually to prayer. Draw us mutually to love and
to good deeds as we encourage each other to do the same. Father,
if some sit here this day and they shudder to the core of their
soul that they cannot see this ever being in their lives. Lord,
would you draw them to salvation? Would you help each of us see
that our only hope is in Jesus Christ, that it is not our resolve
that brings this to pass, but Lord, that it is redemption that
comes through Christ alone, that He has suffered in our place,
that your judgment is satisfied in Him, and that you've raised
Him from the dead, that we might live forever rejoicing as a people. God, I pray also for our children
that this word would sink into their hearts. In Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.