2 Thessalonians 1, verse 11. Wherefore, so the Apostle Paul
is writing to the church at Thessalonica, this is his second letter to
them, of course, and he writes, wherefore also we pray always
for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and
fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work
of faith with power. that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. May the Lord bless this short
reading. We've been for a number of weeks
now thinking about Paul's letters to the Thessalonians. And we
did spend some time in First Thessalonians. We learned there
how the Apostle Paul had ministered amongst them, how he had to flee
the city because of persecution, and how he was careful to work
out by sending Timothy back amongst them to find out how they were
doing. The apostle has clearly got a
burden for this church in Thessalonica and he began this little letter
praying for them. And here we come to the end of
the first chapter and we discover that the apostle is still praying
for his brethren at Thessalonica. And maybe it's appropriate that
we just mention that point in passing, that though he was distant
from them, though he was only able to communicate with them
by letter and that wasn't sending it by airmail by any means. This would have been taken probably
on foot in parchment form, wrapped up in somebody's garments maybe
and And yet here he was praying for them and telling them that
he was praying for them as an encouragement to them. And I
just think that that's actually quite a nice thing for us to
note and remember. We may well be many miles apart. We may well be separated as far
as an awareness of circumstances and situations that are occurring
day by day in one another's lives. and yet there is a prayer that
can go up on behalf of one another and if it was effectual for the
Apostle Paul to pray on behalf of the Thessalonians to his saviour
then it is effectual for us to pray for one another as well. So here's the Apostle praying
for his brothers and sisters in Christ. But it's interesting
as we look at these last couple of verses, just to see what the
apostle says concerning particularly this aspect of worthiness. He said that the prayer that
he sent up was that our God would count you worthy of his calling. And it might seem a little bit
strange that the Apostle Paul should pray that the believers
in Thessalonica be found worthy of their calling to glorify Christ. What possible measure of worthiness
might Paul expect to find in these new young believers? Now it's true that the Apostle
Paul has noted their faith and he's noted their love and he's
noted their patience in tribulation. As we've mentioned, it was a
church that was persecuted. That manifestation of love was
evident when Timothy reported back to Paul and of course he
knew that there were genuine believers, men and women of the
faith amongst the people there. Yet it can hardly be thought
that our personal faith and our love one for another and our
patience under tribulation can in any way recommend us as worthy
before God. Because we know that any good
we have in ourselves is only God's grace and goodness reflected
in us. So, worthy in any way whatsoever
seems to be the exact opposite of what redeemed sinners feel. In fact, if anything, it's a
sense of unworthiness that most describes our sense of ourselves. If I was to say to you, if I
was to invite you to make a list of all the worthy things about
yourself that might tend to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in your
life, I don't think it would be a very big list. Well, it
might be a big list, but after we started thinking about it,
we would score them off one by one, I'm sure. Because we long
to excel in many ways. but I don't think we ever really
feel as if we do. I would like to love the Lord
more than I do. I would like to love my brethren
more than I do. I wish I had more faith. I wish
I had more patience. I wish I had more joy in my heart. None of these things I find worthy
in myself. I wish I had less doubt and fear
about what the future might hold. I wish I was not so judgmental.
I wish I was not so easily tempted to sin. I do believe that the Lord has
worked a new creation in my soul, a creation that is perfect and
holy and righteous in the sight of God. But I confess with the
Apostle Paul that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good
that I would, I do not. but the evil that I would not,
that I do. Actually, I doubt very much that
the Lord Jesus Christ will ever be glorified in any quality found
in me. I am such a huge bundle of contradiction. that even if I might be able
to hoodwink another sinner into thinking that there was something
admirable in me, I certainly could not expect God to count
me worthy of any blessing or deserving of any goodness. So what does the Apostle Paul
mean then when he says that he prays for these three things,
these three prayers that he has, firstly concerning their worthiness,
that our God would count you worthy of his calling, that our
God would fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness in you
and that our God would accomplish in you the work of faith with
power. What is it that Paul is asking for here? What is he seeking
in these prayers? Well, let's just touch on them
briefly, one by one, and then we'll bring our thoughts to an
end. The first thing is this. The
only way that God will ever count a sinner to be worthy, worthy
in his sight, worthy in the sight of God, is when he views that
sinner in the person of his son Jesus Christ and that's what
the apostle Paul is referring to here. Paul has been explaining
that there will be two distinct groups of people distinguished
when the Lord returns. It's the tares and the wheat. There's two groups growing side
by side, as it were. How do we tell apart the two
different groups, those who are the Lords and those who are not?
Well, we can't. And that's why the Lord said
to the apostles and the disciples, no, don't go in the parable,
don't go and try and take up the tares because you'll just
harm the wheat. So there is this distinction.
There's those who do not believe the gospel and those who do. And Paul has been speaking about
the fact that there will be everlasting destruction from the presence
of the Lord, and that will be the portion of those who do not
obey the gospel. And for those who do believe
the gospel, the privilege of glorifying and exhibiting every
admirable feature and character of the Saviour forever and ever
and ever and ever. So that the calling of the Church
is to display and demonstrate the worthiness of Christ in all
his gracious accomplishments and in all his provision for
us. The Church, the body of Christ,
every redeemed saint individually bears personal testimony to the
great achievements of our Saviour in his obedience, in his submission,
in his sacrifice, in his substitution and the redemption of our souls. So it is that the very existence
of the Church the fact that there is such a body as the church,
the people of God, every redeemed individual believer who comprises
that body exhibit and bear witness to the glory of the Saviour and
all that he has done. The second thing that the Apostle
Paul prays for here in these verses is that God will fulfil
all the good pleasure of his goodness in the Thessalonians. And he's talking about the Thessalonians
but he could just as well be speaking about us because These
New Testament epistles, these letters written so long ago to
people long dead, long gone, are preserved because there is
a continuity of blessedness that comes to the Lord's people in
Christ. So he's talking about us. And
Christ will be glorified in the judgment of the wicked and in
the salvation of the church. Both outcomes, judgment and salvation,
reveal the attributes of our Almighty God. Holy wrath and
holy love both display the glorious and admirable perfections of
Christ. And Paul has spoken of how the
punishment of the wicked will be demonstrated when the Lord
Jesus Christ comes back and will demonstrate the glory of Christ's
power. So the salvation of the saints
demonstrates the perfections of God's goodness. Judgment and
glorification, hell and heaven, both display the power of Christ. And Paul has a good hope for
the believers at Thessalonica. He has seen evidence of grace
in the lives of these people personally and by reputation. He believed as he did concerning
the believers at Ephesus that they were God's handiwork. Or as he writes to the Ephesians,
his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God had before ordained, that they should fulfil
those good works. And so he prays, as he did again
for another church, the church at Philippi, that he which hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. It's the humble and loving prayer
of a pastor for his flock that the good pleasure of God's goodness
be fulfilled in the people that the Lord has placed under his
ministry. And that's what Paul is saying
here. He longed for the good work that
he had seen begun in the lives of these believers. He longed
that it would continue apace in the lives of his friends at
Thessalonica and at Ephesus and at Philippi. This is the heart
of the pastor for the well-being of his people. And thirdly, the
apostle also made this prayer at the end of this opening chapter,
that our God would accomplish in you the work of faith with
power. And this is another desire of
the apostle for the blessing of his friends. They had faith. Paul's testified to the fact
that they have faith. He has seen the evidence of that
faith personally. He was confident of its divine
source. He was confident of its genuineness. You know, some people say, oh,
we can't ever really be sure if we've got faith or not. Well,
the Apostle Paul was sure. The Apostle Paul credited faith
in the lives of these people. And we mustn't... We mustn't
be critical in our spirits with respect to the testimony of other
people. We're so grateful when we think
of our own lives that the Lord has been merciful to us and we
trust that he will be merciful to others also. And the apostle
was pleased to express his confidence in the genuineness of the faith
of these people. Because faith is not a work of
man. It's a work of God and lots of
people speak about their faith and of their believing and of
course many do believe in many things with varying degrees of
conviction. But true God-given faith is a
rare and wonderful thing. It comes from God, it is a work
of God in the soul of man, and it communicates all other spiritual
blessings from God to his people that he is pleased to bestow. And faith grows. It starts off
little. It develops over time. Sometimes it ebbs and flows. It does not come all at once
or remain ever constant. But God is the author of that
faith. He is the source and originator
of faith. And it is God alone that can
bring it to its full extent and maturity by an act of his power. and therefore it is very appropriate
that the Apostle Paul should long to see that growth and development
and maturity in faith in the life of this young church. I
truly believe that faith serves the Lord's people by providing
sufficient strength and enabling to meet the appropriate need
of the day. And I've been spending a little
bit of time, even today, with a couple of the Lord's people
who are in a very poor way. And I believe that the Lord will
be encouraging their faith, even in the depths of perhaps their
own souls in a way that they could not vocalise or explain.
The Lord does not give us great faith, except he then gives us
a cause for it to be greatly exercised. And if we have the
great exercise of faith, we may be confident that the Lord will
give faith commensurate to the need. He gives a cause and he
gives the faith to exercise. Little as our faith might be
at any particular time, he will increase it as the need of the
day arises. Sometimes a believer becomes
afraid because they feel they have not enough faith to see
them through an especially hard experience. But remember what
Paul has said here. It is God who accomplishes the
work of faith and he does it with divine power in the lives
of his people. It is not up to us to generate
that faith within ourselves. It is up to us to go empty-handed
to the Lord in our need and ask for the faith that we require. And maybe we should just conclude
here by stating that despite the contradictions that we see
and feel within ourselves, and the doubts and the fears that
persist in our own hearts and minds, and the failures that
we leave behind us in our wake every day, Every child of God
can be encouraged and comforted by Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians
and for them as well. The Apostle Paul says concerning
the Thessalonians, and we take it to ourselves, we pray always
for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and
fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work
of faith with power. that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless
these thoughts to us. Amen.