I don't know if you've been reading
this text or not, but it seems like there's so much here,
yet not so much. Does that make sense? There's not much text
there, but there's so much there in the text. And so as we've
been looking through it, I've said to some of you, even in
passing, and I think I need to probably go back and re-preach
that, pick out this or pick out that, and do some others. But
ultimately, God is faithful in the preaching of His Word. God
is faithful in His Word. And he doesn't need our creativity,
doesn't need, and I'm not saying I'm being creative, I'm just
saying, and sometimes we look at the Scripture and we think,
well, how am I supposed to find the right information? Well,
if we read the text in its simplistic form, as it's written to us in
the English, for the most part, depending on what translation
of the Bible you have, we'll see. We'll see a text that teaches
us that which God wants us to know. We'll see a text that gives
us the option, the experience of these first century apostles,
what they went through, what they understood about God, how
they were able to actually live out their faith in power and
glory, sufficiently enduring all the suffering that they endured
day by day by day. And then in turn, we then have
the opportunity to be encouraged and strengthened by their testimony
that God had given them the word that is the words of God. God
wrote these things through the hands and the tongues and the
life of men. But now it is written to us,
or for us, that we might believe and receive the power of the
gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,
that the God of all creation has come to us. And friends,
that's why we are assembled together today. That's why we're here
this very moment. Not because we are culturally
bound to be in church. Not because we're looking for
some fun-loving opportunity to engage with each other. We've
got backyards and barbecues to do such as that. which I encourage
you to do. We're not here because we want
to see a different type of ministry. We're not here because of some
people's accusations that we're just offering an alternative
to doctrine and an alternative to polity. We're not here because
we are some special elect, the only saved people in the county
and the county surrounding. We are here today because the
power of God rests within us through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
He has recreated us anew through the sufficient sacrifice, life,
ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And by faith, we have
received the power of God and the grace of His love and His
affection toward us, and that we are gathered as a people that
display the glory of God in the most magnificent way, so that
God then can have praise and glory and worship and affection
returns to him. And so when we see Paul close
this little portion of this letter out before he gets to this doxology,
that's exactly what he says. It's exactly what he's teaching.
It's exactly what he's not only teaching and saying, it's what
he's experiencing. By the letter of his hand, he
cannot even hold back the expression of joy that comes to the gospel
of Christ. as it is related to and given through the people
of God, the people of Christ, the local church. And so that's
why we're here today, beloved, to celebrate such joy, to celebrate
that reality where the Lord is able to work in us, to work through
us, and to receive praise through it all. And so friends, I pray
that that would be something that would just, not harshly,
it's not the right word, heavily weigh upon your soul as you finish
this day. As you leave this assembly, this
gathering place, I pray that this would be a reality that
would stick with you. I did not come to church. I am
the church. I did not come to the service.
I brought with me the service. I am not here with a people who
just happen to agree with what I agree with. I'm here with a
people whom God has called, ordained and commanded me to be a family
with. Friends, it is it is an absolute joke. It is an absolute
joke to the gospel of Christ, the way we do church in America. It is not even laughable. It's
not even that funny. It's sad reality that for most
people this very hour, as they sit under the so-called teaching
of God's Word, are not even hearing the Scriptures. We are blessed, beloved, because
God has given us the truth. Let us take full advantage of
this opportunity. Let us hide in our hearts the
Word of God. so that when the day comes where
our children or our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren or
our second great-grandchildren live in this world, that the
Word of God, though it may be taken from the shelves, it will
never be taken from our hearts. God's Word will be preserved.
It will do that which is intended to do in this moment. It is intended
for you, the beloved of God, to be encouraged, enriched, and
empowered to live your faith to the highest. to recognize
those idols which are so easily encroaching upon our lives, to
see the things that we love still, every single day, that take precedence
over the Gospel of Jesus, that we're able to look into the mirror
of our souls and say, oh, woe is me, an undone man, amongst
a people of undone, wicked lips, sinful minds, decrepit hearts. You have saved me, O God. You
have brought me out of darkness into light. You have transferred
me from destruction into everlasting light. You have brought me salvation
through Jesus Christ. And to your ears, my lips shall
praise you. And when I'm faithless, you are
faithful, for you cannot deny yourself. These are the reasons
we gather every week, beloved, as often as we're able, so that
these types of praises will be upon our lips, upon our hearts,
upon our minds, We don't need church plants to do the American
thing. We don't need new congregations
gathering together in the sake of their own journey of joy and
social strata and all of these things. We need the world's church
to wake up and see the power of God who parted the seas of
old, who brought back the dead, who gave eyes to the blind and
limbs to the lame. We need to see the power of God
who spoke into the nothingness and the cosmos leapt into being. Then we need to see the great
power of the love of that same God who brought Himself through
the womb He created to become just like us, to suffer in the
same way we suffer, to be tempted in the same way we are tempted,
and to die as an innocent lamb of God to suffer the wrath and
the fury of the fullness of the winepress of the judgment of
the Father so that we could sit here this day free, and holy, and loved, and empowered. You have gathered here this day,
beloved, to engage in the power of the cross of Christ. that
we might feel it, live it, eat it, know it, experience it every
moment of our lives individually and then corporately and then
in the world as we engage every single opportunity that's given
to us by our Father who is in heaven. This is why we're here.
And friends, we don't need conferences to get that power. We don't need
masses to see that experience. We don't need anyone but each
other and this Word. The power in the prayer of you
is more effectual than the power in the prayer of the masses.
When we pray for each other, it does just as much as if 50,000
were praying for each other. When we minister to each other,
it is as if the hand of Christ Himself is ministering to your
very need. We fill up what is lacking in
the suffering of Christ for each other. We add to and fill up
and finish that faith which is not yet complete in each other's
lives. And Paul talks about that this day in this text. God has equipped His church for
everything we need. If you have a need this moment,
you have a need in your conscience, you have a need in your heart,
you have a need in your life, in this very room and amongst this
very people, God has supplied that need for you. There is no
other place you're going to find it. Because that's what Christ
does when He saves His church. He saves it perfectly and every
part is intricately important to each other. And friends, if
you think yourself not important to the body, you missed the point. Let's look at this text. 1 Thessalonians
chapter 3. verses 6-10. I will read at the
end 11-13 to prepare us for next week, but we're going to talk
about verses 6-10. But now that Timothy has come
to us from You, and has brought us the good news of Your faith
and of Your love, and has reported that You always remember us kindly
and long to see us as we long to see You, for this reason,
brothers, In all our distress and affliction, we have been
comforted about you through your faith. And we looked at that
last week briefly. For now we live, if you are standing
fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we
return to God for you? For all the joy that we feel
for your sake before 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." It's questions with statements. And
Paul, friends, this excites me so much that I'm not sure I can
contain myself. By the Lord's grace, as I opened
my eyes this morning, I realized I could not focus them. And I
get these migraines from time to time. I have not had one since
I've had new glasses, but the Lord, for some reason, kept me
from being able to see this morning. You know, pinwheels, helicopter,
ceiling fan type stuff. Those who experience ocular migraines,
you know what I'm saying. I thought, Lord, what's going
to happen if I can't read Your Word? He said, well, you know the text,
just talk about it, preach it, share it. But he seemed fit to
give me my eyes this morning. So if I hover my head and I do like
this, I'm not aggravated or in angst, I'm just hurting a little
bit. Just so you know up front. I'm not angry, because I might
look angry. But this text excites me. This
text gives me joy. This text, as a pastor, gives
me purpose. It helps me understand the reality
of what I've all said in this introduction, that God is doing
a great work amongst His people at all times. There is never
a time where God's not working with His people. Because even
when it seems like God is far away because of our sin, God
is sanctifying us and pressing us into the center of Christ,
our righteousness. And though those desert moments
may feel as though that we are all alone, it is during those
times when God is the most present. Not that He's any more present
than others, but He's the most present even in the absence of
our knowledge of His presence. Much like the old footprints
in the sand type thing. I hate that thing. But anyway,
it speaks to us. Why do I hate it? I don't know.
It just bothers me. God carries us always. I think it bothers
me because I'm always thinking, you know, where there's two sets
of footprints. Listen, if there were ever two
sets of footprints and God was not carrying me and I was walking
on my own, they were never together. That's why I don't like it. We're
not walking with Jesus. My footprints would have gone
straight into the depths of the sea and I would have drowned. So God's always
carrying us. He's always with us. He is never
far from us. And so, beloved, there is encouragement
through the gospel. There is power through the gospel.
There is satisfaction through the gospel. There is hope through
the gospel. In the gospel. And now in verse
6, let's just review these things. But now that Timothy has come
to us from you and has brought us the good news of your faith,
and the good news of your love, and the good news that you reported,
and reported the good news that you always had good remembrance
of us, and you long to see us for this reason, verse 7. You
see that? And so what's happened here is
this verse actually gives a summation or a summary or a reflection
of everything we've learned for the last two chapters. And He
gives us the opportunity to reflect on those things. The first thing
is this, that the Thessalonians received the Gospel as we learn
in chapter 1, with what? Joy and suffering, much affliction. They became imitators of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ. They began to walk in the way
of Christ, following those who walked in the way of Christ.
They were a testimony as they mimicked the fullness of all
of the churches of that area, all of the churches, the early
churches, the birth churches, and we see that the gospel was
powerful. that they were witnesses of the
Gospel, that what they did and how they proclaimed the Gospel
was evident, people could tell of their salvation. And so the
Thessalonians received the Gospel gladly, joyfully, with enthusiasm
and zeal. Have you ever known someone who
seemed alive in all appearances? But then it turned out they were
dead. Have you ever gone to a funeral and looked at a body and thought,
They look like they could just get up. I remember many funerals. And when you're in the ministry,
you go to more funerals than you do anything. And I know that
there have been some times I've sat there at a wake. That's when
people stay up all night with the body and hang out. They do
that everywhere but here. Here, you know, you visit with
the body for a few hours and then you bury it. Out west and
up north, you hang out. You take it to the house or you
hang out at the church. It's called awake because you
stay awake. And I remember many times sitting there thinking,
did I just see him breathe? It's been a stressful week. Is
he breathing? Looks alive. Thought I saw him
breathe. You ever thought that? And you know you're crazy because
it's not happening. But I often think about that,
and I think about the reality of one day, what if there are
going to be people in wake, lying in wake at the resurrection,
and I'm like, you see them breathe? That's impossible. Hey, y'all!
Bye, y'all! I mean, you know, that's going
to be great. Too bad I'm not going to stick
around to see the aftermath. It'll just be one of those incredible
things. But the point I'm making is that even a dead body can
seem alive. And for the Thessalonian Christians,
they seemed alive when Paul was there. They had zeal, power,
enthusiasm. They loved the Gospel. They loved
Christ. They loved this new life that
was given to them. But Paul was no fool, just like
Jesus is no fool. Just like you see in the Gospel
of John, three places that I can think of off the top of my head,
where people believed in Him, but they were not born of Him.
People believed in who He was. People had a profession of faith.
That's six times now that I'm sitting here and thinking through
it. People believed and believed and believed. But the Scripture
even says that the last verse of John chapter 2, that many
believed in His name that day, but Jesus did not entrust Himself
to them, for He knew what was in man. No one had to tell Him
about the heart of man. You know what the heart of man
is? Dead. And when the gospel comes, and
in our world today, we have a gospel that is good news to our itching
ears as a whole. The world loves the worldly gospel. The world loves the gospel that
says, you're suffering, you can have absence from suffering.
Paul made it clear to teach these people that the gospel included
suffering. It's good news that you're dead.
It's good news that God made you alive in Christ. It's good
news that Christ was raised to the life so that you could live.
You have hope of life, not just eternally in a spirit, but eternally
in a body. You have hope of life and you
have hope of suffering in the midst of this life. It's going
to happen. That's what we talked about last
week. It is imperative that you understand, church, suffering
is not just something that may happen. Suffering will happen. More for the Christian than for
the unbeliever. And in our world today, the so-called
gospel that appeases the worldly flesh says this. The worldly gospel says this.
You can find happiness apart from Christ. They use Christ,
they use the reality of the Scriptures to teach something, but they
do not give the good news. The good news is Christ alone saves people who
are dead. And sadly, even when the true
gospel is given, there are people who will receive it with joy,
Jesus on words, who will show evidence of fruit, the seeds,
the sower, and then fall away. And what we like to do in our
culture is this. We like to say, oh, you're just,
what's the word, backslidden. You're just backslidden. You're
just slidding down the wrong slide. You slid in the mud puddle,
buddy. You're dirty. Wash off. It's okay. Let me get a wipe.
Let me get that little spot off your lips. You ever had somebody
do that with their spit? That's gross. But that's what
we do in our culture. That's what happens. We don't.
I pray by the Lord's grace. We don't do that. But that's
what happens in our culture. Most of us have experienced that
type of behavior and type of teaching. So Paul was no fool. He knew that just because they
received it with joy and they were alive when he was there
doesn't mean they were born of God. Hear me church. We don't measure our faith, we
don't put satisfaction in the reality of our faith or the faith
of others by the exuberance in which they believe. Some people
believe with a somber reality. Some people believe with a broken
spirit that cannot even be expressed. Some people, as Peter would say,
have a joy that is inexpressible. And so Paul was concerned, as
we looked at last week, that they at work had been in vain.
I was fearful that the tempter had tempted you. What is that
looking at? You received the Word of God,
but the thorns of life had come up, the problems of life, the
stress of life, the suffering of life, and choked it out, and
the devil took the Word. How does he do that? God lets
him take the Word. God lets the devil take the Word
out of every human heart that is not made by him in the image
of his Son. That is the plan of God. Wow,
I don't like that. Take it up with the Word. Jesus preached that. Jesus preached
that. And there's nothing we can do
about it. But I chose to believe. I believed that Word so hard-heartedly. Friends, how many people do you
know who believed, who preached, who shared the faith, who walked
with Christ, who joined the church, who taught the class, and who
handed out Scripture, and then walked away? You know what the
Bible says about those people? They never were among us. Are you among the body? Are you
in Christ? What do I do about it? That's
just the point. You plead with God in His mercy. And God in
His power convicts you, brings you, restores you, gives you
repentance. And friends, this is the experience
daily. Many of us want that high of
salvation. My friends, what if the salvation
that we experience brings us low? It's easy to walk away from it.
It's easy just to move on around. I'm saved, but I'm going to live
my life for me. I'm saved, I got Jesus, I received the gospel,
quote, quote, quote. But I just can't deal with this
exciting Christian. Friends, a very, very, very,
very dear friend of mine who mentored me in the faith for
a very good season of my life told me many years ago that there
is no such thing as a normal Christian except the one that
is holy, perfectly, overwhelmingly zealous about the gospel of Jesus. But that in itself does not prove
it. Judas was exuberantly zealous about the gospel of Jesus. And
I don't think Judas was greedy in the beginning. I think Judas
became greedy. But he was not born again. But
he followed Christ. Judas loved the work of Jesus,
but he hated the man of Jesus. People love the work of the church.
People love the ministries of the church. Oh dear God, keep
me from saying these things. And people love these types of
things, but they hate Christ. And when everything is stripped
away and all you have is Jesus, and that does not satisfy us,
we are not in Him. It's not to say that it's easy.
It's not a struggle. The very idea that it's a temptation
to walk away proves that it's a war. You see? It's a war. It's a battle. We're fighting the good fight
of faith. The power of the cross. So these
Thessalonians received the gospel. This is the point I'm trying
to make. With zeal. And these missionary apostles,
they had to leave Thessalonica very quickly and abruptly, and
so they had no opportunity to stay there for an extended period
of time. So they were concerned that we
could not see the perseverance of the church, because that's
what proves one's election. Paul said, I know that you are
the elect of God. I'm certain that you are in Christ.
I know you have salvation. But they couldn't see it. They
could see it after Timothy reported back, which is what made him
respond with this letter. We got the good report. I'm writing
to you. This is what we thought. This is what we felt. This is
how we were discouraged. This is our fear. Now we rejoice,
and now we're getting into that point. And so here we see that
this infant church was abandoned very quickly by the power and
the sovereignty of God, and their zeal was indeed supernaturally
birthed. That's what Paul wanted to see.
Was your zeal, was your faith in the flesh, or was your faith
in Christ? Was your faith by the Spirit?
Have you been born of God? Or have you just believed because
it was convenient to believe? Have you just believed because
all your buddies were... Have you just believed because
we came in power? You hear that? It's easy to believe
when an expositor is standing on a stage and the lights are
dim and everybody just sang three times a cappella, Behold the
Lamb of God. And we feel, oh my Lord, I feel
the Lord. You don't feel the Lord, you feel adrenaline. I saw Christ. You see Christ?
You saw a blabbering goat, just like me, yak, yak, yak, yak,
yak, talking away. And if it was not the words of
God entering into the power of His sovereignty over your soul
and your mind and your will, you saw nothing. But you could
have received it with joy, with exuberance, with zeal, with excitement. And then just to fall away, just
go right back to where we were. Just say, oh, it was good, I
once believed, or I do believe, but... You're the believer, you
don't believe, church. And so the evidences of this
belief, this test of their faith is proven out in the pruning
of the flock of Christ. Many who believed in Thessalonica,
listen to me church, many who claimed belief in Thessalonica
probably did fall away. Paul's concern is that all of
them would fall. All of them might fall. And how he knew they did not
fall is when Timothy looked and said, wow, they're still here.
They're still preaching. They're still praying. They're
still being suffered. They're still dying. They're
still suffering for the sake of the cross. We know God has
called them to salvation. We know God has prepared in them
a new heart because they did not give up Christ in the midst
of great pain and darkness. And sometimes it just takes a
word from a friend or a co-worker about the gospel or about our
faith for us to just put it away. Hide our Bibles. Stop praying. Stop talking about spiritual
things. Alright, let's keep spiritual things away from this particular
conversation. Friends, don't ever put yourself
in that place. You'll be tempted to. We are
all tempted to. And the test of our true salvation
is that we don't fall prey to those tests. Well, I did do that
once. Are you doing it now? Have you
rested in your apathy? Are you fighting it? You can't
have both. Nobody's calling for perfection.
Nobody's expecting perfection except for God. But when we sin, we have propitiation.
We have an advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous. But these things
are written that you may not sin, brothers, because God does
empower us to be able to put to death these things in our
life that so completely plague us. And as I've preached over
the last seven, eight weeks, friends, it is the Word of God
alone that gives us the power of the grace of God in order
to overcome the sin of temptation or the temptation to sin rather.
It's not a sin to be tempted. Jesus was tempted. And the test of suffering for
the faith will prove whether we are truly in the faith. And Paul is saying that the test
was given, that God gave the test. You have survived, you
have persevered, you have endured. And so now I know that you receive
the gospel, what does he say, in power and joy through much
affliction. You didn't just receive it because
it was man's word. This is just a review. You received
it because it is the power of God unto salvation. You are born
of God and it's proven that you are truly the elect of God and
that man and your will and your mind was not the causal agent
of your faith, but that the Spirit of God has saved you through
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We know this because your suffering
is real and you've stayed in the faith. Not only is your suffering
real, but you have joy in the midst of your suffering. It's
proven because you are sharing the Gospel that causes you to
suffer. You live for Christ that causes
you to suffer. You stand for truth that causes
you to suffer with all humility, all kindness, all love, all affection. They weren't pompous. They wept
over the lost. They weren't angry because the
people at large were just such big sinners. We are all just
such big sinners, except by the grace of God we've been called
out of darkness. And now we still are living in
a broken flesh with a new spirit. At war with each other. So we
put on the armor of God. We stand in the Word of God.
We hold fast to the confession of our hope. The helmet of salvation.
The sword of the Spirit. Shield of faith. Ephesians chapter
6. We stand firm in the promises
of God and the sufficiency of the Gospel. That there is no
attack that the enemy can fire that will hit us. even though
we may feel we've been stabbed to the heart. We're not. Their salvation was proven as
they submitted to the suffering, as they endured. The word endurance
is the idea of leaning into, pressing into. There's the pain.
I'm going in! You see? Endurance is not pacifying
the pain by taking it away. That's not enduring, that's getting
away. Endurance. Be strengthened by the grace
which is yours in Christ Jesus, Paul would say to Timothy. Enduring
much suffering. Press into the pain of suffering. God is able and sufficiently
able to give you the grace to embrace it. Don't hide from the
suffering that comes because of the Gospel of Jesus. Don't
run. Don't escape it. Don't stand
on the sidelines. Stand firm in the midst of the
battle and be glad that God is your fighter. Be glad that Christ
is your warrior. He is the victor and He's already
won. It's a beautiful church. And they have not fallen away.
Look at verse 5 really quickly before I move on. For this reason,
when I could bear it no longer, I was sent to learn about your
faith for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our
labor would be in vain. That's how I close and that's
what I've just reiterated today. Friends, there is a common understanding
of people in Christendom that will use that text as a proof
text to teach you that you can lose your salvation. I hope that
little exposé right there helps you see that those who fall away
have no salvation. If we can lose that which God
has so graciously done, God is no more sovereign than this microphone,
no more powerful than this Bible, well, than the letter. Not this Bible, but the Word.
We cannot lose that. But by falling away, we prove
we never had that. We never were the church. And Paul is saying very simply,
I wanted to see if you were just an emotional bunch of folks or
if you've been saved by the power of God. I want to see if you
were just enthusiastic because it was a new thing, like what
we see in the world today, what they call New Calvinism, these
young, restless and reformed. They're on the way out, y'all.
It's on the way out. These people, now I'm not talking
about their salvation, I'm just talking about their stand on
doctrine. Exposition. Sola, sola, sola, sola, sola.
Yeehaw! Christ alone. It's empowering
many people to write books and songs and preach and start churches
and all this kind of stuff. But then you step back and you
look at the life that these people live as the church. And you don't
see a bunch of sin. I'm not talking about that. But
you see a bunch of stuff that's not regulated by the truth of
the doctrine. You see a bunch of things that
they're engaged in. Ask the church. They're doing
this, and they're doing that, and they're doing this, and now they're
starting this, and they're doing that. And the Bible teaches the
apostles say that that which is true to doctrine affects the
outcome of that which we believe affects the outcome of our lives. If we say that God is sovereign
and the Word of God is enough, then we do things that actually
disprove that, then what are we saying we believe? That we
don't believe in the sovereignty of God, and we don't believe
in Sola Scriptura. The erosion of the authority
of the Word of God has been the very thing that happened from
the beginning, from the fall of Satan to the temptation of
man to the temptation of Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the twisting
of Scripture and the abuse of the authority of God's Word that
brings all of these things to life. So these new Calvinists,
as you call them, they're on their way out, praise God. It's
not a fad to be reformed. It costs you everything. to believe
the gospel. I'm not even talking about reform.
But that's what it is. All Protestants are reformed. All doctrine of those who are
evangelical is reformed doctrine. That's the point. If we're not
reformed, we are Catholic. And not in the sense of universal,
Roman Catholic. No matter how you shake it, If
you're not Reformed, you've just fallen back into Roman Catholicism,
which said what? Man is the center of his salvation,
his effectual will is that which purposes God to move on his behalf. If he does these things, then
God will do these things. And it's just a step away. When
we stand for the truth, let's just take the word before and
throw it away. When we stand for the truth of God's Word as
Paul meant it, it will cost us everything. You see that? Are you here with us this day
because it's faddish to be in reformed circles? I promise you
you're probably not. Because your engagement in your
life and your intimacy as a people is costly. It's costly. But it's powerful. When the Word
of God is preached, God's people grow. When the Word of God is
preached, God's people become intimate. When the Word of God
is preached, your joy is full no matter how hard your life
is. And when the Word of God is preached, our lives get harder
and harder and harder. When the world would say, just
take a break from that. That's not what you need. That's
not good for you. It's not? Then God's a liar. Romans 8 says
that all things work together for those who love Him, for their
good, who are called according to His purpose. Is God a liar? We're liars. We lie to ourselves. The world
lies. God doesn't lie. He cannot lie.
So all of this is proving that these people are truly in the
faith. that they've persevered through these things. But now
that Timothy has come, verse 6, to us from you and has brought
us the good news of your faith and of your love and reported
to all these, for this reason, look at verse 7. In all of our distress, in all
of our affliction, we have been comforted about you through your
faith. And I didn't get a chance to
really expose this as I wanted to last Sunday, but let's just
look at it before we get into verse 8. which is where the bread
and butter of today comes from. He says, but now we were concerned,
we were fearful, we just did not want to hear the report that
we got to Thessalonica and there were like two Christians. And
they'd been beheaded. Everybody's like, yeah, we were
with the church, but now they took John's head off. I'm like,
meh, not me. That wasn't the testimony. I
saw them take his house and set it on fire. I'm like, do you
know how long I worked to pay for that house? I'm not about
to be a Christian. So I stepped back. That's what happens. And
Bob went to work and they laughed at him. He was talking about
this man that was God and rose from the dead and he's sovereign
over his life. They fired his behind and then they killed him. I don't want to be like Bob. That's what's going on. But now, we're concerned. Now we've learned of your faith.
Timothy has come back. I bet Paul had the paper ready.
He's sitting there going, Timothy, when are you going to get back?
Come on, come on, come on. Would you text me back? How patient we must have been
during those days. There's a lesson in that that
doesn't fit with the sermon. Simmer down, folks. We heard the good news of your
faith. We knew that you believed. You
were trusting in Christ. We heard the good news of your
love. What does John say? You believe on Christ. You walk
in light. It's proof. You endure much suffering.
It's proof. It's one of the proofs. And you
have love for the brethren. Love is an action, not a feeling. Love is a commitment, not something
that you hold fast to in a picture frame. You can't love a picture. You can. Let me take that back.
You can hold that picture dear. You can protect it. You can keep
it safe. You can keep it dry. Keep it from fading. You can
reframe it. You can remat it. You can digitize it. You can
recolor it. You can expose it. You can reprint it. Save it.
Put it on Facebook for everybody to see how much you love that
picture. We can love a picture. So even the love of inanimate
objects shows that love is not a feeling. It's caretaking. It's investment. We love our
money. We love our stuff. We love our
house. We love our yards. We love our dogs. We love everything.
We love everything in our world. And John says, do not love the
world or anything in the world, for the love of the world is
not of God. Jesus Christ, the living Word
of God, who was from the beginning, who spoke, and all things came
into being, upholds by the Word of His power all things, the
cosmos, every eon, every electron, every molecule of everything
that exists. These chairs stay together as
chairs because Christ and His sovereignty holds them together
by His Word. And with a breath, it's gone. When Jesus goes, The next thing
he says out of his mouth, undoes all this. Undoes it all! And we are held
by the power of God in the hand of Christ our Savior. We love things. Love is what
we do to invest in life. So you love each other. We heard
of your faith. We heard of your love. And we
heard of your love for us. You want to be with us. You're
not talking, man, I'm glad the apostles are out. It was a lot
of heated. It was heated when they were
here. They loved the apostles because they wanted to learn
more about Christ. They wanted to learn more about
their Lord, about their God, about their Creator, about their
Savior. They wanted to hear and to see Silas and Paul and Timothy. They wanted them with them so
that they could have intimacy not just with them, but because
of Christ in them, they could have intimacy with Christ. We
heard of this longing and we long to see you and therefore
we are what? Comforted. Is that the utmost concern that
you have for this church? And when I say this church, I
mean we, these people. It's that we are living with
an intimate, supernatural, powerful, gracious, overwhelming love for
each other in such a way that we're concerned about our joy.
We give more concern to the pain sometimes than we do the joy.
Oh sister, so-and-so is hurting. It ought to make us weep. We
ought to hurt when people hurt. Friends, the pain that goes away
this day will be back tomorrow in some other form. So the most
important thing we can concern ourselves with is that we, each
other, are concerned that each other do not walk away from the
ultimate treasure, who is Jesus. And no matter how hard we're
hurting, or you're hurting, or somebody else may be hurting,
when we see the joy, if I walk into a deathbed, and I see this
person who has gone from 200 to 70 pounds, and their skeleton
with skin, and their family is weeping and mourning over that
imminent, soon death, and they have tears, but they are joyful,
resolving to find hope in their mourning as those who have hope
in Christ. I am satisfied." Satisfied. Are you satisfied in the joy
of the saints? Look at verse 8. This is unbelievable
to me. Because you, Thessalonica, because
you, the church of Thessalonica, are satisfied and have joy and
maintain your faith in Christ Jesus, we live. Now we live. There's a comma, and then there's
a conditional statement. But before the comma, there's
a for. Verse 8 starts with for. Because
you are in the faith, we live. If you stay and fast in the faith,
we live. You see that? Both are true.
What does he mean? For now we live if you are standing
fast in the Lord. Verse 9, for what thanksgiving
can we return to God for you? For all the joy that we feel
for your sake before 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. And I'll be honest, I probably
won't finish that today. Now we live. Think about these people. They
left this city under duress for the sake of their own physical
lives so that they might continue to plant churches and proclaim
the gospel in other places. And all of a sudden, they are
in another location, but they're so burdened about Christians
elsewhere that their mind and their prayers and their focus
is on those Christians, as well as the Christians of the new
place. But they could see them. They
could hear them. They could correct it. They could
shepherd these people. These Christians, these Thessalonians
could not be shepherded any longer. They couldn't be seen. They couldn't
Skype in and check and see what's up. They had to rely on eyewitnesses'
account. And when they got that witness
report from Timothy, Paul says, for now we live. What does that
mean? For now, we live. If you're standing
fast in the Lord, and as you are standing fast in the Lord,
we live. We live. You know what that means?
That means the common purpose of their existence, that the
reality of all that they were and all that they hoped to be,
everything that they decided and prescribed for their life
in every given day, was all for nothing if the church did not
live by faith in Christ. But now that the church is living
in Christ, it is certain that they have been born of God, that
all the suffering, all the trauma, all of the trials, all of the
things that did not go right and well for these apostles,
friends, they did not matter any longer for these apostles
in the midst of their imprisonment were alive because the power
of God had rested upon those who received the Word of God.
That was their reason To live. Because the work of Christ is
our reason to live. For who was our glory? Who was
our hope? Who was our crown? Is it not you? Remember two weeks
ago? Christ is our glory. The body
of Christ then reflects perfectly His glory. We see His work. We are the people of God. Therefore,
we are always exulting in the joyness and the fullness of God
and Christ Jesus. We are excited is an understatement. Paul says, we now live. When we saw his writing to the
Philippian church, you think, well, that's a stretch. That's
just a little phrase. I know what Paul says. For to
me, live is Christ. To live is Christ. But to die
is far better. What shall I do? I do not know.
For I long to be with Christ, but I long more also to be with
you, that the power of Christ may rest in you, that you may
be full, that you may have joy, that you may worship, that you
may become alive, and that more and more and more and more of
the grace of God would give will be given to more and more people,
so that what? Thanksgiving to God would be
the result to the praise of His glorious grace, Paul would say
to the Ephesian church, that's why I'm here, that's why I live,
and when God no longer wants to use me to that point, take
my head from my body, and He did. My life is to see you joyful. Friends, if there's a pastor
anywhere in this world who does not have that as their heartbeat,
they should just go ahead and quit the ministry. And I pray often, not as often
as I used to, because I'm afraid God might answer it, that He
would kill me before I failed in that way. But He's faithful, isn't He?
It's not about what I want or when I want. It's about what
He wants. It's about what God is doing. Now we live. Paul is saying our living is
fueled by the life of those who hear the Gospel and stand fast
in the faith. Not who are plugged in. Not who are assembling. Not
who are just doing the cool things. Not who are starting their own
ministries. That's not what fuels me. It's not about leadership.
Leadership is nowhere to be found in the Scripture. Leadership
begins and ends with being a slave. That doesn't work in our culture.
Being a leader means being a slave. Not being in charge. Not having
the right credentials. Not having the right skill set. Lord, have mercy. We don't need
skills to work for the Lord. We don't need skills. I'm not
saying we don't learn. We're all to be learning. Everybody
in the fellowship of a church ought to be a seminarian as the
preacher and the teacher and the Word of God is continually
provided as an opportunity for us to grow in grace. And friends,
what I find more in my life and in yours is that after about
three years, God begins to start helping us to see things. And
I don't know why it's been like two or three years, but friends,
I think that after about five years, a church grows so intimate,
nothing can tear it apart. But the proof of what happened
in Thessalonica is that it was about five months. You know why? Because Paul didn't
spend any time talking about the administration of the church,
the focus of ministries, how to get people equipped. He preached
and preached and taught and taught and prayed and prayed and preached
and preached and taught and taught and prayed and prayed and loved
and died and suffered. And while he was suffering, all he could
think, I've got to get out of here so I can go pray and preach and teach
and love these people some more and love these people some more.
And He said, you take Timothy and you do what I do, and then
you teach others to do what you do, and then you teach them to
do what you do. Hold him fast to the Word of God, which you've
learned as a child, the Holy Scripture. And because I see this now in
you, I'm alive. I'm alive. Then He asked questions. Verse
9 and 10 is one question with some parentheticals. For what
thanksgiving can we return to God for you? What does that say? What can we praise God for? How
can we thank God? Return to God thanksgiving to
Him because of you. What can we do? Because we feel
joy before God for your sake, for all the joy that we feel
for your sake before our God. What is the outcome of an overwhelming,
overfilling, overflowing joy? We just need to express it. And sometimes it's inexpressible
between our faces, but friends, it's never inexpressible between
God. Friends, you can thank God in the midst of the most heinous
circumstances. Just like little Ellison, who
shattered her elbow as we prayed for her that night. I thank God
for that. For many reasons. Most importantly,
that it could have been worse. It could have been a neck. Secondly, that God is sovereign
over everything. Thirdly, that there's a purpose
for our good in it. Fourthly, that there is an outcome to be
had with the gospel, that ministry of the gospel and the word of
God in the midst of that family would be powerful amongst that
suffering. That's why it happened. That's why it happened. But if we're so busy doing everything
but that, how can we ever labor and praise God for it? Friends,
we see Paul saying that your life before the Lord brings us
joy so much that he calls it his living. And now he is able
to worship God and thank God and praise God for His glorious
grace in the life of these Christians. You want to learn how to worship
God? You need to praise on your heart? You don't need to come
in here and feel something. You need to come in here and
know someone. First and foremost, the God of
the Bible who is Jesus Christ, through His Word, learn Him so
that you may know Him. Is that the way you've learned
Christ? Paul would ask the Ephesians. Have you learned Christ? And
then get to know someone else in this fellowship so that you
may then what? See the work of God in their
life that you may rejoice in what He's doing for them as they
rejoice in what He's doing in you. And I don't know why, but every
time I think about that, every, every time I hear that hymn in
my head, as the things of this earth grow strangely dim in the
light of His glorious grace, I hear that all, every single
time, several times a day, I hear that hymn in my head. We should
sing that hymn. I don't know if it's even good anywhere else, but
that line, we could sing it over and over. Twenty-five times or
something. That's what happens. In the light
of the grace of God, in the midst of the grace of God, we're able
to see Him work in the lives of His people and outcome of
that grace of those lives is that we thank Him. Is that not
the reason why God saved us? We sang it this morning. Praises
to God straight out of the book of Revelation. No S on that. Revelation. I'm just joking. Nothing. We know that the purpose
of the church is to display the manifold wisdom of God to the
praise of His glorious grace. We are here for the sake of God
receiving the worship that is due Him. It's not contrived. It's created by His power. We're
not drones. We really do love God. What Thanksgiving can we return
to God for you? Because of the joy we feel before
God for your sake as we pray. See what's happened? Paul's not just
now praying for their endurance. Paul's praying for their joy
and Paul's praying for intimacy with this church. We're right
back to where we started. I want to be with them, Lord. I want
to see them face to face. I want to worship God with them. I want to teach and I want to
learn. You think the Apostle Paul couldn't learn? He learned
Christ. And as he saw the church grow in grace, he learned Christ. Wow! Look at my God. Look at
my Savior. Look at what He does. Look at
what His Word does. You know how God showed me sola scriptura
before I ever knew the term? When out of spite I wanted to
preach to ruin a program, I began to expose Scripture and preach
verse by verse for one solid hour in a midweek program so
that I would run everybody off so I could say to the elders,
see, this ain't working. You know what happened? It tripled
in attendance. And God taught me something there.
I'm not going to impose that on Paul. I'm just saying God
teaches us when we see His work. As we pray most earnestly, how
often, night and day, that we may see you face to face, and
the very last thing that we see here, and that we may supply
what is lacking in your faith. Now that's tough. He just said,
you've got faith. What's lacking? Like he tells the church at Colossae.
What does he say? I pray that in my suffering,
in my flesh I may," here it is, quote, fill up what is lacking
in what? The crucifixion of Jesus Christ. That's crazy. What's lacking in the gospel
of Jesus? What's lacking in the crucifixion? Nothing, effectually. But the witnesses of the crucifixion,
of the resurrection, There's no more witnesses to that. Now
we are witnesses to the power of Christ through the resurrection.
Now we're witnesses to the glory of God through the saints, through
the body of Christ. Now we're witnesses so that which
we cannot see, that we cannot see Him, we love Him, that we
not now see Him, we hope in Him with a joy that is often inexpressible,
Peter would write to those suffering Jews who believed on Christ. I will fill up what is lacking.
Nothing's lacking, but it's lacking in presence. It's lacking in
the face of the church. And when we see each other, we
see the body of Christ present with us. It's why Jesus says,
when two or three gather in My name, I am with them. It's not
mystical. It's powerful. It's not something
we do to get Jesus around. It's who we are, the body of
our Savior. We are the body. And Paul says
that in other places. To the Corinthians, he says,
I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus. You've never
heard that word? Because they have made up for
your absence. They fill up what is lacking
in your faith. They supply to me, he says, Corinthians,
I'm not able to be with all of you, but being with some of you
is just like being with all of you. That's what Paul says. He says of the church of Philippi,
for he nearly died for the work of Christ. What is he talking
about? Epaphroditus. He nearly died
for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what is
lacking in your service to me. He brought gifts and blessings
and reports. He came. Because there was a
hole here. The body is put together and
knit together in such a way that when one part is missing, there's
something that can't be done that's lacking in your faith.
So when we send the reporter, when we send the messenger, when
we send the missionary, Epaphroditus, who nearly died, he filled in
the gap. He gave me what you desired for
me to have as the church. You couldn't bring it. He brought
it. You see? I think when I preached through that, I made the comment
of the statement that when one of us are there, we're all there.
That when one sister or one brother ministers to you, that the body
is there with you. That the body is ministering
to you. That the Lord is ministering to us. You don't need the one. We all believe that. Historically,
throughout the entire American church, we've all believed that
the pastor is the closest thing to God that they come. And 600 sisters can come visit
you in the hospital, and when the pastor walks in, all is good.
Well, I'm willing to bet you that ministry can come more effectively
through somebody else in certain circumstances than it can through
me. I don't know that. I'm just saying.
Certain circumstances. Sometimes God doesn't allow some
of us to minister because we're unable to. You can't minister
because you're in the middle of all of it. And you need ministry.
It doesn't make you ineffective. It makes you part of the close-knit,
intricate reality of the body of Christ. That what you have
need for, when someone else gives it, fills up what is lacking
in your faith. Paul's like, I want to stay around
and we want to come back to you because there's some things lacking
in your faith. To the church of Colossae, I've already said
that. Now rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh,
I am filling up what is lacking in the affliction of the suffering
of Christ. Why? For the sake of His body. That
is the church. As you see my suffering, Paul would say, you
see the suffering of Christ. Christ suffered, so therefore
I suffer. And when I suffer with joy, you
can see that in the same manner Christ suffered. It's not the
same effect. It's not saying He's just like
Jesus. But when we suffer and we praise God through our suffering,
those who are also suffering among us who cannot find that
praise, who cannot find that joy, look at us and go, wow,
there's hope there. This brother, this sister, They
are able to rejoice in the midst of this pain. Therefore, I know
that Christ is teaching me to do the same. The ministry of this service
is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing
in many thanksgivings to God, said Corinthians 9.12. And that's
what ultimately comes out of the response of being the body,
who get their life by seeing the faith of each other grow
and settle and suffer with joy. Church, this message, the message
of 1 Thessalonians, the message of 2 Thessalonians, the message
of Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, the message to the letters of
Timothy, the message of all of these letters in the New Testament
is not popular in our culture today. The message of the cross
of Jesus is only as popular as it's able to be received at one's
own terms. Jesus Christ, as the living martyr,
is always pleasant to the ears of those who need saving. But
when that Savior rises from the dead and thus reproves Himself
to be the God of heaven, under which all people will be silenced,
to which every knee will bow and say, Jesus is the Lord Almighty. They hate Him. And friends, if there's nothing
else we need to learn from today's text, it's that we are a ministry
of joyful fighters. surrendered to the reality that
that is not going to wane, even though seasons may seem as though
suffering will fail or fall away, we will not see the end of it.
But that together, by the power of the grace of God, we will
stick it out. We will endure. You will not
be cast away by your Savior, beloved. You will never be forsaken. You will never be destroyed.
You will never receive the wrath of God that is due you because
Christ has paid it for you. And what do we want to do at
the end of that? Break dance. Rejoice. Weep with praise to
His glorious grace. There's no other response. I
guess the question is, have you believed in vain? Is your zeal
just an emotional response to a beautiful picture? Or is your
faith the work of God? Have you truly believed on Christ?
This day is your day of salvation. Not yesterday. Not a year from
now. Not a year before that. Not 10
years ago. This day. Are you believing, trusting,
hoping, resting, fighting? Because Christ has saved you.
Believe today. in Christ alone. It is by faith
alone. You know what that means? You
can leave here today and you can begin to minister to each
other, pray for each other, study the Bible, and all that thing,
but if you go to bed every night saying, see now Lord, I know
I'm with you because I got all these things together. That's
not saving faith. That's another gospel. The gospel
is when I can do nothing more but rest in Christ who's done
everything. It's a passive faith. That's bad. That's not the word
I'm looking for. It's an active faith, James says. It's a passive
faith, Paul says. Which is right. They're both
right. As Jesus would tell Nicodemus, that those good deeds that we
do have been created to be carried out by God. He tells the Ephesians,
we are God's workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus to do
good works which God prepared before him for us to walk in.
So that when Paul saw these Thessalonian Christians standing fast in their
faith, not one time did it ever enter his heart, I'm so proud
of them, Look what they've done. Wow, they are real Christians
because they got it together. He said, praise you, Father,
for your effectual grace. Praise you, God, for your gospel
that came in power. Praise you, God, that not only
have you sustained them, but you will sustain us. And friends,
He will sustain us as well. Lord, as we close this time in
Your Word, Lord, I thank You so much that You are so good
and so powerful and so glorious and so beautiful. Father, there is nothing that
can separate us from Your love. There is nothing that can detract
us from the truth of the Gospel, because You have planted it in
our hearts so securely through Christ Jesus, Lord, that we could
not, if we wanted to, walk away from You, for we would be stricken
with guilt in our conscience. Our spirit would be driven back
to repentance and to faith and to trusting. Lord, You draw Your
own to You, and for this we praise You. But, O Lord, don't let us
walk away without evaluating where we sit, hoping in Christ
alone, not in our work, not even in the fruit of our affection
for Him. But, Lord, hoping in Christ and celebrating the fruitfulness
of Your power in our lives, of Your Gospel, of Jesus Christ
our Savior and our Lord and our King, the Lamb who has taken
away our sin. And no matter how we strive or
how we stand, Lord, let us forever praise You for that and never
put hope in that. But Father, as we also live together
in this world, knowing that the war is at hand, You are victorious
over the battle of sin. You are victorious over death.
Help us to rest in that reality. Rest in the cross. Rest in Jesus,
our King. God, I pray for our children
that if nothing more than this in our hearts and ears, we take
it home to them that they may be empowered to see the Gospel
and be transformed by Your grace so that we praise You and not
ourselves and not each other. Lord, we pray for this congregation. We pray for each other. We pray
for the illnesses, we pray for the trouble, we pray for the
trials, we pray for the pain, we pray for the emotional bondage
that continually binds us up, for the guilt that runs through
our veins. as we ponder what we might do
to be right with You, Lord, give us the power of Christ to see
that our lives are truly painted by this absolute proclamation,
therefore now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
And help us to rise, standing bold before Your throne as children,
though deservative of death, have been forgiven through the
blood of Christ, the eternal Son that we can see you face
to face and call you Daddy, Abba, Father, as you supply every need. As we wait in this world for
that day when You will come and receive us unto Yourself, Lord,
as we look into Your Word, as we hope and are led by Your Spirit,
as we are empowered by Your grace, as we are encouraged by each
other, let us rest this day as we do every day in Jesus Christ
our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.