Many times in our lives we will
come across certain people who, for lack of a better way of putting
it, can sort of get what they want in life. It's just like
they're always getting exactly what they want. And if they're
not able to get it out of one person, they can get it out of
another one. And you know, when we think about that type of person,
we often think about charlatans, people who are just in it for
themselves, hedonists, looking for the next joy of their own
desire, fulfillment of their own joy. But oftentimes, we need to recognize
that sometimes people are not just doing things for themselves,
but sometimes they're able to get what they want in manipulating
other people for their own good, for the person's good. But is
it true? Is it pure? Is it right for someone
to lead us into a specific place to manipulate us for our own
good and for our own joy? Because doesn't the very nature
of manipulation feel as though we've been used or deceived? Friends, think about that for
a minute and ask yourself if there was any way you could manipulate
the actions of our world or the actions of people of this world,
would there not be one or two or a dozen things that may very
well be on your plate to manipulate out of our culture? For example,
I think it would be very honorable if we were able to manipulate
people into seeing and believing that abortion is murder. That'd
be good. We'd all take that class. We'd
all feel justified. We'd all feel as though this
were something good and we'd train and we'd go out and we'd
begin to talk and encourage people to the point where we would one
day hopefully see the end of abortion in our country. Or maybe
we could figure a way to coerce people into stop lying. We could
put them in a position to help them logically and rationally
understand that lying really does no good. It hurts everyone involved. And
if we were able to come up to the table of argument to be able
to say, okay, this is the way we should teach them and they
will change that. Wouldn't that be a good endeavor?
Or what if it was something more in line that we see most of all
in our world today? If we could just get people to
love each other, If we could just teach them how to love,
let's show them love and express our love and do loving things
and people, we will teach them. I mean, isn't that an honorable
desire to see the love of a person expressed toward another person
or another people? It came out on the news just
a few days ago that one of the oldest Catholic institutions
in New York actually established its survival in the mid-1800s
based on the sale of 257 slaves. And they sold the slaves from
northern plantations to southerners so that they could come up with
$3.2 million in today's money so they could keep the school
open and hire more faculty. That's what they did. How did
they get the slaves? Well, some of the board members
owned them. So they donated their property
for the cause of this university. And now it's in the news that
people are demanding some recompense. We just discovered this history
now, don't the families of those, it's not like they were unnamed,
there's a list, they know them. We can see the graves of these
people who were sold. some of them became free. Isn't it something? Wouldn't
it be neat to be able to go back in time and just talk, diplomatically
manipulate people to see that slavery is bad? But can we really do that? We
can try. We can put forth an effort. We can come to the place where
there may even be success among certain peoples, but is it long
lasting? Is it truth change? Just like
I would love to be able to come before you today and in an oratory
fashion convince you, not only that you should love each other,
but tell you how you should love each other and then cause you
to put it into practice. That's what I'd love to be able
to do. I'd love to be able to take that
and make it happen for you. But I cannot do that. Nor can
I convince the murderer to not murder, or the thief to not steal,
or the liar to not lie, or the hater to love. But even if we
could, what good does it a man to gain the whole world but to
lose his soul? Well, that's a little twist in
the Scripture. No, it's not. To gain the whole world in its prosperity,
to gain the whole world in its power, to gain the whole world
in its morality. Friends, the Christian faith
has nothing to do with changing the behavior of men. The Christian
faith has nothing to do with teaching people to get along.
The Christian faith has never been a vehicle through which
our cultures can learn how to live together, love together,
learn together, laugh together, lollygag together, any other
L you want to think of. The Christian faith, the Word
of God, has never been intended to be a lesson book of manipulating
people's behavior into a godlike features, to produce godlike
fruitfulness. The Bible is a personal and supernatural
revelation of God, from God, for God, to humanity. And it's very clear that if there
is ever to be transformation, it must be supernatural transformation
or it is worthless. The prophets would say that the
righteousness of men are like filthy rags before the holiness
of God. That means that even if we're
able to muster up the righteous morality of the Word of God and
so live it, as Paul said, I was blameless, none of that counts
toward righteousness. We don't get our lives together,
and the purpose of the church is to not herald morality and
ethics. We stand on those things because
they are, in essence, a reflection of the holiness and the righteousness
of God. But more importantly, as you'll
see when we're done today, that they're a reflection of the need
for the justice of God, which is equal to His righteousness,
so that therefore, even when men do accomplish ethical morality,
and earthly righteousness, they are still justly condemned by
God in His holiness. And if that's a little perplexing,
and it should be, especially if it is the first time we've
heard it, or thought about it in some months. We get really
enamored, especially in our political climate and culture, that we
want to find people who can manipulate the laws to expressly mandate
a morality or an ethics or righteousness that we adhere to as the church. And there has never been a king
to this day or a queen to this day who has effectively seen
salvation come to any people through the passing of their
laws. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth made it illegal for Catholicism
to even be named among the monarchy. But yet, there it is. A bunch
of Anglican, Romanistic people thinking they're okay. Bunch of Roman
people thinking they're okay. Bunch of Baptist people thinking
we're okay. Our friends, we don't need to
think we're okay, we need to know we're okay. Paul has argued
that. Somebody can turn that air up.
I see y'all shivering out there. Just click it up to a comfortable
temperature, the up arrow. And the heaters are working against
it. That's alright, that's alright. But when we look at our lives, when we look at these
things, when we look at what Paul has taught us thus far,
Paul has shown us that there is an assurance of election.
I use that term because it is the choice of Paul. Thus it is
the choice of God. Listen, God wrote the words of
Paul. God wrote the words of John.
God wrote the words of Peter. God wrote the words of Moses. God has chosen to use the idea,
the term, the phrase, the action of salvation. He calls it election. This is what's so puzzling because
when we hear the word election, it may not be the best English
word, but it's what we've got. But God has chosen to show the
Thessalonians the grace of Christ, the gospel of Christ, and so
given them the gift of faith because these who came to faith
in Thessalonica were those whom God had chosen to save. God saves all those He chooses
to save, and He does not save those He chooses not to save.
That's what the Bible teaches. But sadly, brothers and sisters,
I myself, I know that's not right, but I manipulated people for
a good portion of the first half of my gospel ministry and believing
in a certain way or through certain methods only to find that none
of them were ever born again. So that there was always a response,
there was always an action, and the faith of these people, for
the most part, were placed in the actions and the responses
to what they did, to what they heard. And then they look back
until the day of their death, and some of them might be, and
they look back with hope to the day they chose to follow Christ. When you look at the root of
faith in the New Testament, the very nature of the word pistis.
Believing. It's not a noun. It's a verb. Trusting, hoping, longing, drawing,
moving. It's a gift of God. Paul said
we believe with our mind and we confess with our mouths. But
friends, people today have put their faith in their faith, not
in the faithful one. And sadly, because this is such
an incredibly simple reality, it's been too simple for our
thinking minds to really massage, so we've made it difficult. We've
made the Gospel so heady and so difficult that we forget that
Jesus Himself said that your faith must be like that of a
child. Sitting in the rocking chair
last night, trying to bore my child to sleep. Making ocean
sounds. Rocking. She's staring up at
me like, what are you doing? And just, shhh. Daddy's asleep. And she said, well, I'm just
going to get down, you know. I thought, well, let's just share the story
of Joseph. To which she said, I'm going
to tell you a story. She said, that didn't work. And then we're going to share
the story of Mary, mother of Jesus. How old was Mary? Well, she was
13, 14, like Gracie's age. My Gracie? I mean, you know,
it doesn't go anywhere with kids. I mean, you know, they just think
too much. So I said, well, I'll tell them. I'll tell her the
gospel again. with a thousand times. And she
starts to talk to me about evil things. That's evil. I said, you know what evil is?
So I tried to give her a really dark, descriptive picture of
evil. And I said, do you know who's evil? I said, your daddy's
evil. That was confusing. She's laughing. It's confusing
because we don't have that idea. And the hope that I have, just
as I would share it with her, is that Jesus, who is the Son
of God, who came from heaven and was born of a virgin, who
lived this life in obedience to the holy requirement of God. He gave Himself to be punished
in my place. God destroyed Jesus Christ, His
Son, and judged Him, and killed Him, and punished Him instead
of me, Abigail. It's the gospel. Your only hope, beloved, is that
your hope is in Him. That's what believing is. Faith
is simple. You've got to believe with your
mind and your body will follow. But friends, a lot of times we
believe in our decisions and our bodies follow. and we're
acting out a salvation that's not really a salvation. You see
where I'm going with this? Why am I going there? Because
that's exactly what Paul's been talking about. Paul did not say,
man, y'all got your salvation going well. Paul did not say,
you guys, you really are earning your faith. You really are doing
what's required of you, so surely, surely, surely, God's going to
save you. No, he said, you are those who are the elect of God. God chose you, ergo, look at
you. It's that dichotomy between faith
and works that is seemingly frustrating when you read James and you read
Paul and you read Romans and you're like, James, you don't
know Paul? What's going on with you? But
that's not the point. And then every evangelical pastor,
every Anglican bishop, every person that you know, even Catholics
throughout the history of Christianity, they have fought this issue of
justification by faith alone. And it boils down to the reality
of this is that God, toward His elect, has imputed the righteousness
of Christ to you. That means that God has given
you the righteousness of Christ, and it is to be received by faith.
You believe, and that's it. That's all. There's nothing else
that you do. But God, in His absolute electing
glorious power and mercy, He produces a new heart, a new mind,
a new life, a new love, and all that which goes with faith. So
that when we measure our lives by the glory of Christ, we then
see as His elect, oh, how far from the glory of God have I
fallen. Praise be to God for His infinitely glorious grace. That's why the church is here
today. Never should we say, oh, praise God! Look at all these
non-alcoholics! Praise God! Look at all these
caring people! Praise God! Look how we've gotten
our act together! That's not the point. Praise
God for Your infinite mercy, for Your love, for Your grace,
for Your gift of faith. You have chosen us before the
foundation of the world. Therefore, we believe. For we
have heard and seen and tasted and we love Him. We love Christ. We love God. Beloved, if there's ever a day
as we're growing in our faith, and I say that phrase lightly,
if there's ever a day we look in the mirror of our soul and
we see ourselves fit, we are unfit. So please do not place hope in
your fitness, but place your hope in the perfect righteousness
of Jesus Christ. It is so embattled in our culture
today that people then subject the will and the decision of
men as the pivot of God's sovereignty. Openness. Open theism. believes that God knows all things,
but chooses to subject His infinite knowledge to the will and the
decisions of men, that He denies Himself the foreknowledge of
knowing what men will do, therefore He will give them freedom to
choose. Where is that in the Bible? Nowhere! It's never been written. It's
never been said by God. It's only been said by the God
of this world who purveys it continually through the mouths
of false teachers, false prophets, false believers, false churches,
cults and the like, all over everywhere. And it may not be
that explicit, but when it comes to the table of telling us that
we need to change our ways, like one church recently in the news,
I can't even use that term. One group of so-called Christians
that were recently in the news going into certain businesses
around town, going into certain churches, causing a disturbance,
and one of them actually went into a filling station seeing
a pregnant woman without a wedding band and saying, that pregnancy
is an abomination of God. You will go to hell because you've
gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Really? So if you don't get pregnant,
you go to heaven. So if you're not a fornicator,
you're fine with God. If you're not a liar, you're
okay. No. The very fact that your body breathes air makes
you guilty before God. The very fact that your heart
pumps blood in our bodies makes us guilty before God. The point
is, we as human beings are guilty before God. The good news is,
His love toward us has caused us to be born again in Christ. He sends the Word to us. We believe
and we worship and celebrate His good grace. Not our good
attempts. Let's make this point to you
very clearly. We've got an epidemic in our world of vast proportions
because of the availability of information that's continually
at our fingertips. It pours into our lives in such
a way that we're never without opportunity to see stuff. Just as Brother Mike and I were
talking before service, it's so easy to elevate these godly
preaching and godly men and godly ministries and all this to a
point where the idolatry of our own hearts becomes a root of
deceit. We don't even know that we idolize
these people who worship. Listen, I am a mouth. My usefulness
does not extend apart from my tongue and teeth. And if God cuts out my throat,
any one of you, any person with a mouth, by God's mercy, can
preach and teach the Word of God to you. And God has ordained it powerfully,
perfectly, that our eating of the Word comes together as a
body. Like I like to say very often,
there have been many sermons that I've read and heard through
the years that have been a blessing to me, but they were not for
me. They were not prepared in prayer
for me. They were not labored over in
agony for me, but for whom God had established to sit under
and hear those words. But yet God's Word is for us.
And the local church is the place to which we come for encouragement
and rebuke and transformation and power. We cannot say that we are being
fed and nurtured and pastored and shepherded when all we do
is watch videos and read books and we're not in the fellowship
of the local church. We are not under the obedience
of the command of God because He creates His church for unity. Don't believe me? Let me show
you. What has he been talking about?
Look at this text in chapter 2. Look at verse 17. There's
a but there. That means there's a contrast.
I mean, look at verse 13. I'll
start reading there and we'll go down. 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13. And we also thank God constantly
for this. that when you received the Word of God, which you heard
from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men, but as what
it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers.
For you, brothers, see these words that Paul uses, intimate
words, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus
that are in Judea, the original churches. So that, this is a
reminder from last week, that which God does in the beginning
of the Gospel ministry is the same thing He's doing this day
in 2016. The same evidence, the same purpose, the same mission,
the same message, the same idea, the same reality that happens
for the people of God happened in Thessalonica, happened in
Judea, happened in all of Asia Minor, happened all over the
world and is happening today. If it's different, it's wrong.
Can we say that? I'm not talking about decor,
liturgy. I'm talking about the outcome
of your faith. If it's different, It's wrong. The manifestation
of true salvation is different than it was in the days of the
Thessalonians. It's wrong. It's not God. It's not true.
It's not pure. For, He says, your election is
sure because you suffered, you had joy, you received the Word,
you rejoicing, you worship God, you love God, you love the saints
and all of these things. For you suffered the same things
from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews. which Paul
perpetrated, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets
and drove us out and displeased God and opposed all mankind by
hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might
be saved, so as always, to fill up the measure of their sins.
But God's wrath has come upon them at last. But since we were,
verse 17, 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 hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus
at His coming? Is it not You? For You are our
glory and our joy. Let's pray. Father, please, I ask of You
greatly and humbly, would You guard me against my own commentary? Please, Father, put that which
is true and focused and precise from Your Word in my mouth that
I would not put a stumbling block before us that we would have
to hurdle over, climb through. God, please, please, please work
mightily through Your Scriptures this day. Help us to see the
affliction. And help us to see the affection
of this church and help us to evaluate our own affection for
the sake of Your name, for the sake of Your glory, so that we
would be a people truly seen as Yours. In Jesus' name I pray,
Amen. Only two things in this text.
Two things. Well, there's a bunch, but only
two things I'm going to focus on altogether. I'm trying to streamline
things. The first thing is that there
is one, not the, but one reality of salvation is relational ministry. And another reality of salvation
is the reflection of God's glory and hope in the church. That's
these two arguments that Paul ends with here. And then the
outcome of that is next week. What does Paul do because these
things are true? Therefore, I sinned. And we saw the same thing to
the church of Philippi. First, the reality of salvation
is relational intimacy. Now when I say intimacy, a lot
of things pop into mind. Physical intimacy pops into people's
minds. Great affection pops into people's
minds. All sorts of things related to
the idea of intimacy pops into people's minds. Let me say to
you that there are some things that we need to know moving forward
that we need to remind ourselves of every single day that there
is no such thing as unity without intimacy. If I say I'm in unity
with you and I'm not intimate with you, I'm not in unity with
you. The very idea of unity is union. God put Adam, from Adam took
Eve, one flesh. There they are. Marriage, husband
and wife. Why? As a foreshadowing of Christ
and the church, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3. That's the purpose of marriage.
The purpose of the church is to point to the reality of the
church. The two shall leave their father and mother. They divorce
their old lives. They come together and become
one flesh. What God has put together, let
no man separate. Why? Because it can't be done. so that what God puts together
in Christ cannot be separated. Jesus emphatically says, all
who come to Me cannot be snatched out of My hand, will never be
cast away. They cannot lose. They cannot be lost. So, in that, unity, by definition,
is intimate. So if the marriage unity of one
flesh, go here theologically, is a picture of the eternal unity
between the body of Christ and Him, and Christ, then there is
no separating those two. So therefore, in the same way,
salvation by nature creates an intimate unity amongst the people
of God. That's why all throughout the
New Testament, everywhere you look, Paul and the apostles continually
what? Labor the issue of forgiving
one another. Of forbearing with one another.
Of ministering to each other's needs. Of giving our time and
giving of our lives to help each other. You see? That's why John
in his first epistle is so dogmatic to say that there are two evidences
that you are not born of God. One of them is that you love
the world and everything in it, which says that you walk in darkness.
Darkness, because you're in the light, you walk in darkness.
And two is that you have no love for your brethren. He argues that if you have no
love for your brethren, that is darkness. Because those whom
God has elected, has called, whom have believed, they have
the love of God in them. And it gives us the option and
the power to actually know and feel and express and live out
all the affections of Christ for others. You see that? This is what's happening in the
church of Thessalonica. This is what's happening in the
church today. God is creating a people who
have affection for each other. A brotherhood, a fellowship,
a friendship, an intimacy, a unity. But we have misunderstood intimacy
these days as just hanging out. Doing something fun. That's not intimate. If somebody
started kicking a soccer ball out there, we could all go join
in and have a good time and never ask their names. We go to ball games together
with 50,000 people who holler, lose our voices, paint our faces,
lose all our money in hot dogs. Never know another soul there.
Oh, let's have fellowship. Let's do a movie night. Don't
talk when I'm watching a movie. Don't share anything with me.
I want to watch the movie. That's not intimate. That's just
singleness and isolation. Together. See how misconstrued we've got
it? Fellowship in the local church today has been boiled down to
programmatic assimilation. Oh, that was good fellowship.
I hear that every week. And I love to politely invade
that point. Tell me how. That was such good
fellowship. Share it with me. How was that
such good? We had a good time. That's what
I thought you were talking about. You know what a good time is
for the church? Anything we do together. Anytime
we can pray with each other. Anytime we can pray for each
other. Anytime we look at the manure all over our lives and
think, I don't have enough hours this week to shovel all that
stuff out. There's my brother's pile, let me shovel his. What about yours? Somebody will
come along. You'll go back home, somebody will shovel yours. People
will take care of us when we're intimate. And I'm not just making
this stuff up. This isn't just a self-serving,
manipulative. It could be. Oh, it could be.
Friends, listen to me. I could make the points of this
text, even contextually, twist so hard into your soul that you
wouldn't leave all day. You would just say, I'm not leaving.
I'm not going to be the first to walk out. We're going to be
intimate around here today, you know. That's not the point. God's Word is going to give us
the freedom to be intimate. The freedom to be ourselves.
The freedom, when I say ourselves, as the body. The freedom to live
our lives together in power. The freedom to say, now is not
my time to minister to you because I am overwhelmed. And somebody
comes. Small things, large things, hard
things, easy things. There's an affection here. But
our world has turned affection and intimacy and fellowship upside
down. It has no meaning any longer. And it's easy for people to think,
well, you're the pastor of the church. You've got to have an
audience, quote, to preach to. So the more the merrier for you.
Friends, that is so far from the truth. It is absurd. You
know what I can think about today? While I'm looking out here, and
I see your faces, and I see the seats that are empty, I'm debating
in my heart right now as I teach, what do I do? Lord, be faithful
to Your Word. to feed these who are here. God,
give them joy. Lord, help them to resolve that
this is a war, that we're not here just to assemble together
and go home, but we are in a battle that Christ has already won,
and Your Word is the only sword for which we are equipped to
fight it. So give them the sword, God, that they may have joy in
the midst of hell at the door of their home. And on the very
same other side of my brain, All I can think about is, Lord,
hold those who are not here. that their joy would not wane
as they are separate from us. They need us. We need them. There is much more to do in the
name of Christ together as we grow and understand the power
of the Gospel. As our intimacy is overwhelmingly
supernatural, it will be so tight and compounded by the power of
the Word that nothing can snatch us apart. And I fear for those
who are not regular in attendance. While the writer of Hebrews says
that that's one of the surefire first foundational warning signs
when people do not gather together on a regular basis in worship
and fellowship and intimacy and the hearing of the teaching and
the learning of the Word, they are in danger of what? Losing salvation? No, proving
themselves never of God. Why is this important? What is
Paul talking about? Paul uses the term brothers,
sisters. The very point of the Gospel
is that it's good news because what does Paul say in Ephesians
2? We were alienated. We are hostile. We are enemies. We are dead to God. But God made
us alive. God, while we were enemies, gave
Christ who died for us. God now calls us friends. You see that? That's good news. We were alienated
from God. Now we're what? Reconciled to
God. He has called you to His kingdom. He has brought us into the light
of His glory. He has brought us to be raised
to life with Christ and seated us with Him to the right of the
Father. These are phrases that the New Testament teaches that
talk about relational intimacy with God. So therefore, if the
Gospel is relational intimacy with God through the person of
Jesus Christ, how much more is there going to be intimacy between
His people than there is on an average basis? A lot more. A lot more. God created His people
by His power for His purpose through the Gospel. And it involved
the necessity of destroying, look, destroying the intimacy
between the Father and the Son. Did you see that? In order for
us to be intimate with God, He had to turn His back on Jesus
the Son, whom the Bible says He has loved infinitely, eternally. And when he turned his back on
Christ, because Christ, who knew no sin, became sin, that we might
be the righteousness of God, there was then a chasm of intimacy. Why did Jesus labor so hard in
the Garden of Gethsemane? For He knew that the wages of
sin is death. Death, by definition, is a chasm. It's a separation between us
and the holiness of God. You see? So the whole point of
the Gospel is to bring that relationship back. God, Jesus Himself, what did
He do? Raised from the dead. Jesus was never apart from the
Father. But to be the object of the wrath of God the Father
does not put you in the standing of intimacy with Him. So that
moment of suffering, the passion of Jesus, there was grief, there was darkness,
there was separation, so that you and I could be reconciled
to God. And then Christ is vindicated that He has been raised for life. And this relational intimacy
is one of the realities, I would say, is one of the main realities
of salvation. Look how he puts it there. I'm
sorry, I need to get to the text here. He says, but since we were
torn away from you, brothers. We're torn away. You know what
that implies? We were orphaned. We were ripped
from you. We were taken away from you,
like children taken from their parents. This is not a term of
saying, yeah, we had to leave suddenly, we'll see you next
time. Paul uses this phrase because it's the reality of Paul's affection
and how he felt emotionally when they had to leave so quickly.
Paul's heart as a pastor was to shepherd these people into
the joy of Christ, to teach them the glories of Christ, to teach
them His Word so that they may be effective in their faith,
they may spread their faith, that they may have joy. And Paul
knew that it was the work of God. We've already seen that.
It wasn't Paul's work, but his affection was so much for these
Christians, it killed him to have to leave. Does it kill us when one of our
brothers and sisters escape us? Does it kill us when the seasons
of our life we were not able to be in fellowship with the
church? Do we feel torn away? Paul felt torn away. We were
snatched away. He says we were torn away from
you for a short time in person. Look at that. This physical proximity
has been severed. We're no longer available to
reach out. And so we can always think about
it. Paul was writing letters. We
think that intimacy is involved in writing. There was not any
physical relationship between Paul and these Christians. He
wrote the letters entrusting them to God. And as we see, God
was faithful to grow this church and mature it. He's faithful. Because God doesn't fail. He's not going to fail you. He's
not going to fail us. No matter how much junk we've
got to work through and how much sin we're still trying to overcome,
how many stupid things your preacher may say or how many weird theologies
that are still sitting around in the crud of the bottom of
our pan of our soul, God is faithful to restore us and to create in
us His purpose, which is what? Our sanctification. How's it done? Through the knowledge
of the truth. We've been reconciled. And when
we are together, it feels like we're torn apart when we're not
together. Paul says we were torn apart
not because we wanted to leave. We didn't want to leave. We didn't
want other things. We didn't have our eyes on another
church down the road. So many blasphemous situations
where pastors, God's called me to another work. Right in the
middle of this. Most of the time means, I'm not
having fun anymore. Isn't that strange? But yet, we all know that circumstance
in our own lives, don't we? Not having fun anymore. I'm going
to try another church. Pastors would do. That's not
the heart of a shepherd. It grieves us when we've come
from other congregations. It should grieve you that you
have affection for those who are your siblings in other locations
of the world. That you want to see them, but
you know the reality is we can't see everybody all the time. But
at the coming of the Lord Jesus, we will. But is our heart that
way? Do we have an affection for the
body of which we're a part, that we want to see it nurtured? God removed these apostles in
the midst of great suffering for His purpose, but it was not
their desire to leave. A Christian has a supernatural
love for the body, for her encouragement, for her joy, for her ministry,
that they all desire to be close and intimate. It's not just they
were torn away in person, but they were not torn away in heart.
Look at that. In person we've been torn away,
but in our hearts we're still with you. Now there's an incredible... Beautiful reality about this.
It shows the heart of Paul and the apostles that they did not
desire. He says we did not desire, but
we desire to what? Eagerly come back to see you
face to face. That's our desire. That's our
heart. We endeavored, and I'll show
you that in a minute. But we are not away from you
in heart. Our affection is still with you.
Our prayers are still with you. Our hope is still with you. And so we are highly affectionate
for you. Paul prays many times in all of his letters, as he
would say, with all of the love for Christ, all the affection
of Christ. Paul prays with a great, deep-hearted
affection. There's an intimacy. You ever
needed the body of Christ and there's just no possible way
for them to be with you right then? Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it perfect? Isn't it a
grand reality when those people, when the body connects with you
in any way to say, I'm with you, even though I'm not with you? Because what's the point of being
together anyway? There's a lot. That's where 90% of our lives
come from, and spring from, and live from, is our time together. Largely, that as we leave and
go into our lives in the world, we then are together small-ly. Not as largely, but in small-ly. But when we gather together,
Christ is with us, even if there's 3,000 miles between us. There's something significantly
powerful about that small little text message. Even if you get
it an hour or a day later, I was in prayer for you today. And you look back and you go,
wow, God answered that prayer that very moment. These saints
were praying for me and I didn't even know it and God blessed
me. He gave me peace. He answered
this problem. He walked me through the fire.
because my brothers and sisters were praying. There's something
powerful about that. What else do we need besides
our intimacy around our faith? Some things come. Some things
we need. Food, shelter, clothing. But
ultimately, even in the midst of that or the absence of that,
we are satisfied in Christ. More so together than apart. He said, as in heart, we are
not separate from You. And in our desire, we have a
desire. What is it? We have a desire
to be with You. We wanted to come to You. We
want to see You face to face. Desire is more than just a feeling
for something. A desire is not, man, I'd like
to have a hamburger. You get there for a hamburger
and you go, that pizza looks better. Let's get the pizza.
Or maybe your desire is to be healthy, you want a hamburger,
the pizza looks better, but you order the grilled chicken anyway.
And then you cover it with ranch dressing so it's a moot point. That's not the desire Paul's
talking about. It's not the desire to say, well,
I want to learn Spanish, Chinese. This is a desire that is a direct
reflection of the affection of God for His people manifested
in such a way that Paul had no other thing to do but desire
to be intimately close in proximity with the church of Thessalonica.
It was out of His norm, not out of His flesh. It was apart from
what the world would see. It was supernatural and for us
it is supernatural. You don't think there were aggravating
people in Thessalonica? You don't think there were those
young, immature Christians who always put their foot in their
mouth? Two at a time? You don't think there were those
people that were so needy that you were like, oh my goodness,
is there anybody in this church but that one? How about the immature or the
ignorant? You don't think there were ignorant
people? Of course there were ignorant people in Thessalonica.
They thought Jesus had already come back. They thought they'd missed the
resurrection of the dead. I don't think you'd miss that.
There's Cousin Joe. Dude, he died last week. Yes, there were all types of
people, all layers of easy and not so easy to love, but yet
Paul says he desires to be with them. He didn't desire just to
be with the cool, He didn't desire to just be with the solid. He
didn't desire, oh, you know what? I've got to get these reformed
guys in the corner over here. This is who I like to hang with.
Friends, it is a sad day when all we want to do is have relationships
with people who just continue to sound like us and look like
us and do like us. Just hang out by yourself. Paul loved them all. We should
love each other equally. And I will tell you when we grow
and are sanctified the most is when the most unlovable person
enters our sphere of ministry with the most impossible issue
to deal with. And we're totally unequipped
and totally unprepared. And God grows us in our patience,
in our endurance, in our faith, in our holiness. He does! And our desire should be for
those as well as those who are easy to love, because friends,
we are the ones personally who are easy to love by some, and
we are those personally whom some people go, I cannot know
anything but Jesus, that's why I love Him. We are that person for some people. I'm not looking at anybody specific
either, Put me some sunglasses on when
I say stuff like that. And it's not just that we have it in our
heart. It's not just that it's a desire that we feel. We want to come to You. We love being with You. Why is being together so imperative
in the eyes of the apostles? Because, friends, when we're
together, we do not lack fellowship. All things in common. When we're
together, we do not lack the teaching and the hearing and
the learning of Scripture. When we're together, we do not
lack of concern, we do not lack of prayer, we do not lack of
intimacy. And that should be the driving force of our desire.
And it's evidence then, not that just Paul says he felt it, he
endeavored. Look at that. Endeavored. Endeavored
to come to you. What's that mean? He's making
plans, preparations, and schedules. We're coming. We've got to get
close. We've got to get back. And this
was not a selfish thing for Paul. Look down a couple of verses. 3.1, Therefore when we could
bear it no longer, We were willing to be left behind
at Athens alone and we sent Timothy. Paul said, I want to be with
you so bad. I want to be intimately involved in the ministry there
with you so bad. I love you so much that every
day when I wake up, you're on my mind. In the middle of the
night, I'm praying for you. As I'm suffering where I currently
am, I am also laboring for your joy. It is not a selfish desire. Paul said, if I can't come, I
send someone else. Paul sent his son, his spiritual
son, his protege whom he needed desperately to Thessalonica. And it satisfied Paul's heart.
Wow! We have gone and are with them
now. You see that? So it's just not
a hedonistic desire. It makes me feel good when I'm
with them. No. His passion was for their joy. His passion was
for their worship. His passion was for their growth
in the gospel of Christ and the understanding and the knowledge
of Christ through the teaching of the Word. This is why Paul
wanted to go. His mission was a proof of his
desire and his affection. And he says, the only reason
I'm not there now is because Satan continues to hinder us.
Side note, Satan continues to hinder them by the will and the
purpose and the providence and the power of God. God sent Satan
to hinder them. Why? For Paul's good and for
the Thessalonians' good and for their joy. There is no calamity or no pestilence
or no problem or no circumstance that comes into our lives, evil
or not evil, that is not a gift of God by His provident, sovereign
hand. For the enemy of God does nothing
without permission. Did you hear that? Might be something we teach on
on Tuesday night. Because Satan has deterred them,
but Satan did not stop them. Because Timothy came. That's the reality one. Salvation
is relational intimacy. The second thing, the second
reality of salvation in this text is the church is a reflection
of God's glory. And hope, verse 19, for what
is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before the Lord Jesus
at His coming? See that question? What is he
asking? What is our hope? What is our joy? What is our
crown that we boast? And everybody goes, it's Jesus!
And that's right. Paul says, is it not you? And this text is baffled a lot
of people who don't get the fullness of the letter. They find that
verse and they go, oh wow, Paul's crazy. He's a false prophet now.
No, he's not. Because look, for you are our
glory and joy. What is our boasting before Jesus
at His coming? You are. What is your crown before the
Lord Jesus? What is our crown, he asked.
You are the church. The church of Thessalonica. You
are our crown. You are why we'll boast. You
are a reflection of our glory. You are our joy. What does he say to the Philippians?
He says, I pray that I have not labored in vain. So that I may
what? Boast before the Lord of you. What is our hope? Jesus Christ. What is our joy? Jesus Christ. It's going to be
so simple when you get this. What is our boasting? Jesus Christ. What is our crown of life? Jesus
Christ. And why, pray tell, does Paul
say it is you, church? Do you get it? Upon what body does Jesus, our
Head, sit? Church. See how we separate it? See why
I started out with intimacy? I didn't call it in. When I see you, I see Christ. When I see God's work in you,
I see Christ. When I see righteousness in you,
I see Christ. There's nothing in us. We don't
meet God anywhere. We don't do anything. We don't
come to a place where we're working with God. It's all the work of
God. Our glory. So that then when
we stand together at the coming of the Lord Jesus, behold, the
Lamb of God, we are His body. One flesh with our Savior. It's really that easy. Our crown of boasting is see
Christ. See Christ's church. Do you see
why the Word of God and exposition is so necessary for the assembly
of God's people? Because you need to be able to
see, not only in your own life, but in the life of the body of
grace, truth, Baptist Church, Jesus Christ and His power. When we see the flesh, we go,
oh, that's the flesh. When we see repentance, that's
Jesus. It's not like Jesus. It's not acting like Jesus. It's
not looking like Jesus. It is Jesus. It is the work of
God. It is Jesus Christ. It is the
Spirit of God in us, working in us, everything that we are.
See? It is God who works in us. Our righteousness is given us.
Our forgiveness is given us. Our ability to love is given
to us. It is God's affection for His
church that we share. Paul says to the Colossians,
to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles
are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory. Who? Christ in you. That's why I don't think the
local church has time to play games with religion. We don't
have time to play games with politics. We don't have time
to play games with worldly ministry. We don't have time to play games
with manipulating behavior. We don't have time to play games
with these things. When glory is at stake. He says to the Corinthian church
that he feels a divine jealousy for you. For I feel a divine
jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present
you as a pure virgin to Christ. Church, being the body of Christ
is no social endeavor. Being the church of Jesus Christ
is not a disciplined endeavor. There's discipline. There's social
life. Being the church of Jesus Christ is not an endeavor of
culture. It's a mighty, supernatural work
of God. And everything that God does
in His people, He does through His Word. And He empowers, equips,
and helps us walk in Him as we love each other and walk together. And I don't want you to walk
out of here downtrodden because you see your life right now and
you say, I'm missing that. I'm missing that affection. I don't really like being in
the fellowship of my church. I get tired 57, 63, 81 minutes of preaching. That's
my fault. Oh, I'm so tired. It's just been
a long day. I've got a long week ahead of
me. I need to rest up for tomorrow. Don't pray for God to give you
the rest for tomorrow. when you're not coming to get
the power to rest. It's a wasted prayer. See, I told you I could twist
it. For God can do more in one millisecond
than all of humanity can do in ten millennia. God can change everything in just a second. God can take
that heart of apathy and turn it into a heart of affection
this very moment. Friends, if we don't do anything
else, we need to pray that God would continually stir us up to love, and good deeds, encouragement
and the like. And if He's done that for you
today, act on it in obedience as you encourage each other this
moment and the moments following this week. And if you're desperately
seeing a void that this does not exist in you, would you just
pray? It's funny how we say, Would
you surely pray that God would give you that heart? And know that it will not come
apart from His Word. You can't even pray effectively
if you have not read His Word. It's like trying to work on a
mountain, climbing and chipping away and never eating. Friends, we cannot move a speck
of dust out of our own eye without the Word of God. So I pray that
it be true for you and in you this day. Let's pray. We love You, Father. We thank
You for Your Word this moment. that as it has sunk into our
ears, that You would place it into our minds, into the ears
of our soul, that we would hear and heed and be transformed.
Father, help us to see the beauty of the Gospel together as a people,
created by Your grace, for Your glory. And help us to be Mindful
every moment of our intimacy, not just with each other, but
most importantly, with our intimacy with You, through Jesus Christ
our Savior. Father, purpose in us, press
in us the reality that we must be in Your Word. Help us to not
sleep until we are settled in being intimate with Your Word. Give us the drive to not eat,
if it means we can take that time out to be intimate with
You in Your Word, so that through that intimacy, all these things
shall be added unto us as we seek Your Kingdom, who is Jesus
Christ the righteous. In His name we pray, Amen.