Even everybody if you would turn
to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 I'm gonna kind of read through what
our text will be here tonight, and then we can just make some
comments about it Just put your marker it will be here most of
the time, but I have a few things I want to look at and then a
few other places and Second Thessalonians, or yeah, Second Thessalonians
chapter one, and I'm gonna start in verse three. This is Paul
speaking to this group at Thessalonica. We are bound to thank God always
for you, brethren, as it is meat, because that your faith groweth
exceedingly. and the charity or love of every
one of you all toward each other aboundeth, so that we ourselves
glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and
faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure,
which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God,
that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which
you also suffer. seeing it is a righteous thing
with God to recompense or to repay tribulation to them that
trouble you. And to you who are troubled,
rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory
of his power. And when he shall come to be
glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe,
because our testimony among you was believed in that day. Wherefore,
we also pray and always from you that our God would count
you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure
of his goodness and the work of faith with power. Why? That the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. I titled this message
tonight giving thanks for faith. because this is the first thing
that Paul says to us here in this letter to the Thessalonians.
So what is faith? We have to understand what that
is, and most of us know these scriptures, but it does good
for us to see them. Faith, in Hebrews 11, one, says,
now faith is the substance, the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. Now what does substance mean?
Substance here means confidence, Firm trust. Assurance. So we may well read that as now
faith is the assurance or the firm confidence of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen. So how can we have confidence
in something that we haven't seen? Because really, in this
world and in this life, that kind of is how we exist. And
we have a lack of confidence or a lack of faith in things
that we can't see and hold and touch and experience. So the
best example I could come up with, and I'm sure there's a
lot better ones, is that most of you know, at least in the
past, I don't do it as much anymore, but I used to fly a whole lot.
I'd fly all over the world. And when I first started doing
that, it's a little uncomfortable. And some of you that don't do
it a whole lot, you probably get nervous when you get on a
plane a little bit. And you're not used to all the things that
happen. So you sit there, and you're kind of looking around,
and is everything in order? Because there's times when you
can tell that the flight staff's a little panicked when the plane
starts shaking a little bit. You know, the wind starts blowing
and like you see the wings and the wings start moving a little
bit when the wind blows real hard and you're kind of like
in the back of your mind thinking like, I hope they tighten the
bolts on that. And so you start kind of going
through this mental process of freaking yourself out because
you don't have faith in it, because you haven't done enough to build
any faith in it. The plane drops, so you get from
high to low pressure, the plane just drops, and then you get
this sinking feeling in your stomach. Like, how is it going
to happen again, and how far are we going to drop? The plane
dives when there's wind and storms, where all these things happen,
and you don't really have the experience to know where the
end result is. You hope you're going to get
through it, but you really don't have any confidence you do. There's a
difference. And so now, I mean, I've done it again and again
and again. I still get a little nervous
when we fly over the ocean to go somewhere. That kind of freaks
me out. But I fall asleep when I sit
on a plane now, before it even takes off. I have no idea that
it's taken off and no idea that we're well into flight. It's
just kind of my routine. I don't even think about it,
because at that point, I have confidence that everything's
been checked. Secondly, there's nothing I can
do about it, even if there is at that point, but I have confidence
that everything's good. And so my faith in the flight
being OK, I'm not worried when we dip and dive and the plane
experiences all these things that used to scare me. And I
see other people around me who don't have that same confidence
and faith in the plane, and they're scared. But I'm sitting there
just kind of like, well, I'll go back to sleep. So I have a
different measure of faith than someone else. So I can't see
the wings, pilot, wind, or the storm, but I have faith based
on experience that it'll be okay. And I no longer question if we'll
make it, it's when will we get there. So it's a very different
experience at this point. So I use this to illustrate that
my faith has grown, it's matured, and it's become more sure. And
so this is what Paul is saying here to these Thessalonians.
It's not just that you have this very basic understanding of what
he came and the gospel that he preached to them. He's saying
your faith has grown exceedingly. So this church has grown. Here
Paul is rejoicing, he's thankful for this. And in terms of our
experience, and I think this is important to remember, we're
all given different measures of faith. Now that faith has
to be in Christ, but we're all given different levels of assurance,
different levels of faith. And I kind of, you know, I write
this to myself and to, I think, everybody in here, but, you know,
when we see our brothers or sisters do something that is not a good
demonstration of showing good faith or we see that their faith
is weak. We're not to look down on them
because I think it shows two things when we do. Because first
of all, we forget where the Lord found us. We must remember, where
did the Lord find me? And I think that you can recenter
yourself real quick when you look at things in light of, where
did the Lord find me and where would I be if he didn't? Far
more ignorant than whatever they're doing. And secondly, we have
forgotten faith is the gift of God. It's not something that
they're doing or not doing. It's not something that they're
able to work through and grow into. This is God's gift. It's
God that gives. So if my brother or sister is
struggling or I see their faith is weak, pray for them, support
them, speak to them, comfort them. That's what we're called
on to do. The faith is not of yourselves, it's the gift of
God. And if I'm a person who's been
given a true saving faith, I know that it's the gift of God. There's
no question in my mind that I read this and therefore I came to
these conclusions and now believe them. I wasn't even asking the
question, can I have faith? I have no conscious experience
that I recall of even receiving faith. I felt no push from God,
and the scripture says in Romans 10, 17, so then faith cometh
by hearing. That's where my faith came from.
I came and did exactly what we're doing tonight. I came and I listened. And one day, I heard. I understood
from a child being raised under the gospel, I understood what
it said. I had an intellectual understanding of what was right
and wrong, and I could hear the difference between truth and
error when somebody else would say it, because intellectually
I knew what was true, but I didn't believe it. But I remember as
a child, I guess almost an adult before I came to college, one
day I was sitting there and listening, And I heard something different
than I did before. And I didn't really understood
what the feeling was, if you will, but I just remember thinking,
you know, I actually believe what he said. It wasn't more
than just like, yeah, I agree, that's what it said. Like, I
actually believed it. And I found myself wanting to
hear it more in terms of the exercise of that faith and believing. So faith has something to do
with believing the words of this book, because that's what's being
preached. If we go to a place and they
are not preaching from the words of this book, you can rest assured
no one will have a saving faith. Now you might have a lesson in
counseling, you might have a lesson in morality, you might have a
lot of things, none of which have anything to do with the
saving faith. It might even be just the principles and customs
of the church. But it doesn't have anything
to do with salvation. So let's not confuse that. It's more than
just I know what it says. It's that I believe it. It's
that I know, I can know that Christ died for sinners and the
ungodly. But it's a very different thing
when I believe myself to be a sinner and stand ungodly before Him.
It's a very different thing to know that and then to understand
it. So faith is the gift of God. Well, how great is this gift?
I'm gonna turn over to Romans 7, you can turn if you'd like,
Romans 8. And in verse 24 of Romans 8,
Paul tells us, we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is
not hope. For what a man seeth, why does
he yet hope for it? But if we hope for what we see
not, then do we with patience wait for it? We are saved by hope, and he
tells us hope that is seen is not hope. And we read earlier,
or I quoted earlier from Hebrews 11, faith is the substance of
things hoped for. What is then my hope? And what is it that I'm hoping
to be saved by? Well, first is that God won't
find me like he did my father Adam. God found my father Adam
in the garden, and he was hiding. He had a reason to hide. No one
had to tell him that he needed to hide. He knew he had to hide. He knew he had to hide because
he had sinned. And that sin was written on his
heart and on his conscience. And he had to hide because he
knew that he could not be seen by God and have sin on him. So
the first thing that I hope for is that I am not seen by God
in my sins. The second thing is that I have
a righteousness that even a holy God can look on. Now, compared
to men, other men and women, we can all find reasons why we're
better than somebody else. You can say, well, I'm a good
person compared to that one. Maybe so. But that has nothing
to do with what we're judged from in this book. We are judged
from whether we are holy, righteous, compared to God, compared to
Jesus Christ. And when you start looking at
yourself compared to him, who did not sin, and not only in
what he did outwardly, but the intentions of his heart, you
see, outwardly, I can put on a pretty good show for you. And
you don't see, I mean, you probably see lots of faults in me, I'm
not even aware of, but the point is, is that I can, from the outside,
appear, I'm okay, I'm pretty good. But the things that I think
in my heart and in my head, those things, those are the ones that
actually are condemning me. Because that's where all the
outward things actually come from. I'm just not letting them
out. And the Lord tells us that he looks on the heart. That's
what we're judged by, the things that go on in this heart. So
I need to be seen in righteousness before a holy God. So where can
these two things be found? Because I think we can acknowledge
everyone in this room, just by the fact that you're born and
will die, we know you're a sinner. The fact that you die, because
that's the only reason for death. Secondly, we already know, when
you look at your righteousness compared to Christ's, you don't
really have a lot to stand on. So then what do you stand on?
Because you don't have a lot going for you at this point,
and neither do I. I must stand in the Lord Jesus Christ, in
the Son of the living God. He must then be that object of
my faith that I have hope in and that I have an assurance
in. Faith is not just understanding what this is. Faith is believing
in Him. My faith is in Him, not the promises
and doctrines are things that are part of this book that describe
things that are principles of God and the way He saves, but
I'm saved by a person. That person might perform those
things, but I'm looking to that person to save me. Election may
choose me before time again, but I'm chosen in a person. A
person had to come and die for me. A person has to come redeem
me. A person has to give me life.
We are saved by a person. If you'll turn with me over to
1 Peter 1. In verse 7, well, let's start
in verse 6, "'Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season,
if needs be,' what would the need be? That you're in heaviness
through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found under praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not
seen, you love, in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing,
you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. In verse eight, it tells us in
whom you believe, not in what, it's in whom, it's a person.
whom we rejoice in the promise. What is the promise? That we
might be found under praise, and honor, and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ. That's the promise is that you're
going to stand before Him unblameable, undefilable, and unreprovable.
And that He will not be able to look at you in your sin and
will only see the person of Christ. We'll be made in His image, that's
what we're told in Romans 8, conformed to the image of Christ.
And And in believing and having this faith, verse 9, we receive
the end of our faith, the very salvation of our souls. This
is why we're here. We're here to worship our God. We're here to worship him because
he sacrificed his son to save our souls. I think we say those
words, but it took him killing his son. to save somebody like
you, to save somebody like me. Would you sacrifice your own
children for someone else? We don't consider the greatness
of this gift that he gave. And not only would you give your
children for someone else, but for an enemy. We were all enemies,
ungodly, hating him. But yet in love, he gave his
son. And so in considering that, we're
to worship his son. So what is it, back to our text,
what is the evidence of a faith that grows exceedingly? Well,
he tells us in verse three, faith growing exceedingly that the
charity or love of every one of you all toward each other
aboundeth. It's love. What is the evidence
of faith growing exceedingly? Love. Love to everyone? No, he tells us love to the brethren.
Love to every one of you towards those that are in the faith,
the love of the brethren. Now, some of us are very unlovable. And I can say this guy right
here can be number one on the list. I can be intense. You might not like that. I like
things different than you do. I might sometimes think I know
it all. And you can look at me and say, I don't like that guy.
I'm different than him. There are plenty of other things
that you can tell me about me, the reasons you wouldn't like
me. And there are plenty of things that make up all the people in
here that are different about each other that we never would
have found commonality with each other in this world. I'm different.
I'm different than you. You're different than me. What
commonality then do we have that we would look at each other and
say, I love this person? What commonality can we find
in that? If I can count you my brother
or sister in Christ, we will have love for each other because
our love isn't found in us. Our love is found out of a love
for his son. That's what we have in common.
The rest of the stuff doesn't really matter. The rest of the
stuff is the stuff that's gonna get burned away. Paul says, I
give thanks for you. I glory in you, not what you
yourselves do. He says, I glory in seeing the
hand of God at work in causing your faith to grow exceedingly. It's a mystery. It really is. Why this one? Why is this one
chose and not that one? How many people have sat in here
and that I grew up with sat there next to people growing up with
them? They're not here anymore. Why one and not the other? We
ask those questions. Why Jacob? Why was he chosen,
not Esau? If you look at the two of them,
I don't think I would like Jacob, just as a person. I have nothing
in common with him. I have a whole lot more in common
with Esau. I would like that guy a whole lot more. But God
chose Jacob, a nobody, a liar, a cheater, a supplanter, someone
you look on and say, I have no respect for that person for what
he did. but yet God said, I love Jacob and I hate Esau. God's choice. Why did he choose
one and not the other? We're all different, yet everything
that will endure beyond this life, we have in common right
now, a love for his son. That's the only thing that's
gonna endure. The rest of this stuff, it's meaningless. It truly
is. Well, what did they glory in
seeing? Well, he tells us here. He says,
we glory in you, in verse 4, and in the churches of God for
your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations
that you endure. Patience and faith in persecution
and tribulation. I want to spend a little time
here. Patience comes with time. There are no shortcuts. Patience
is one of the hardest things that we have in this life. And
some of us, this guy right here, I've not achieved it. And I think
I may be a little more patient than I was before, but I don't
do a good job at that. And for me, it's harder than
somebody else. It has something to do with enduring through something,
with the hope and the expectation that it'll be better later or
different. the expected end will eventually
arrive. So that's like one of the worst
things we can say to somebody is like, be patient. Really?
It doesn't just work like that. Patience comes through time.
And that's the hard thing. We learn things through patience. And unfortunately, that comes
through time. And for us, that's hard. Because that time means
I've got to endure through something. And that something is something
so great that I'm so focused on it being over, and it's not.
And that's why we're impatient, because we are not able to endure
through it mentally. And in time, it takes time to
get through that. We gain wisdom. We gain temperance
that we could not have gotten otherwise, and had not we gone
through the experience to gain this patience. And the obtaining
of this patience here, sadly, often comes through persecution
and trial. If patience was just something,
so you think, you know, I think at a young age at some point,
you know, I recognized, or was probably told many times by my
mother that I was impatient. And so I would pray for patience.
Well, in praying for patience, you don't just wake up and are
patient one day. You endure. You go through things
in order to gain that patience. You endure, you bear with. and trials. They're loaded on
you. You must suffer with these things. Why? Why must this be this way? These are the results of sin. Pain. Pain comes physical, pain
can be mental. Disappointment, something didn't
work out the way you want. My plans, they all fell apart. I'm disappointed. Heartache,
you lose somebody that you love. There's a heartache, there's
something missing there I can't get back. Disbelief, I never
thought I would be here and look at where I'm at. If you haven't
experienced this yet, you will. Why? Why me? Why is this happening
to me? When will this be over? To what
purpose is being accomplished here? I'm just suffering. How
much longer do I have to endure this? All questions that we ask
while we are being formed and growing in patience. We often
think that trials are punishment. We think that this is where God
does not see us or hear us when we cry to him. Lord, deliver
me from this experience. Get me out of this. We think
that the Lord's not in that. And when he does, we think, he
took my trial away. Finally, the Lord came, he heard
me, and he delivered me. And we think that that's where
the Lord is. But these things, he says, if need be, that you
are in heaviness through manifold temptations. What we just read
in 1 Peter 1, if need be. It may need be that I am put
through a great trial in order to root something out in me.
It may needs be that I am put through something in order to
purify me. Though painful and distressing,
what we thought before is God can't be here because of what's
going on when in fact that's where God actually is. When Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego stood, They told the king, we're not
going to bow to your image. We don't know if our God will
deliver us. He's able, but we don't know if he will. You can
imagine when they were walked up to the edge of the mouth of
that furnace. In their minds at that point, they thought,
well, I'm going in the furnace. We asked God, he's not here now.
Where was he? He was in the furnace. When Daniel
stood at the edge of the lion's den, You can imagine looking
down that pit and knowing there are wild animals in there that
would tear you apart. He stood there thinking, is God
going to deliver me? It wasn't until he was thrown
into the lion's den, into the trial, into the absolute heat
of the fire, who was in there? The Lord was. He sent his angel
to protect him, shut the mouths of the lions. When all of Israel
stood in the desert, They had escaped Egypt. They thought that
they were free, but yet these people are chasing them behind
them, trying to cut their heads off. And now they're trapped
in between the sea, and they can see the Egyptians marching
before them that are going to slaughter them in a matter of
hours. But yet, even in that moment, who was in the pillar?
Who looked out at the Egyptians? God did. What this is teaching
us is through these experiences, pain, trial, heartache, the Lord's
in it. And he's in it for the salvation
of his people and the protection of his people. The Lord looked
out at them. Who sold Joseph into slavery?
Imagine that. Was it his brothers? No. The
Lord said, I had a purpose. and sending you to Egypt, that
I might preserve life." How long did it take Joseph to know that?
How many years? This wasn't like a two-week process. He spent years in prison even
after that for something he didn't do. He spent years of his life
through suffering and pain. The Lord was in it, and he had
a purpose. He didn't know it at the time,
but what carried him through? His faith. The faith did not
fail him. who cast the stones at David
when he was betrayed by his son, out of his kingdom, thrown out,
thought that, where am I going to go now? The Lord put me on
the throne, my son has betrayed me, I've been cast out of the
kingdom, and then here comes Shemai, chucking rocks at him,
cursing him, and David's in his lowest moment. And then Abishai
said, do you want me to go and cut his head off to David? Because
they were angry for their friend, for their king. And he said,
no. He said, the Lord told him to
curse me. The Lord was in the trial. Painful and distressing, but
the Lord was in all these things. The Lord uses these things to
teach us, to prove us, and to purify us. How valuable is gold
that's full of impurities? Like when you buy jewelry, you
don't want to buy something that's not you know, pure gold, or that
it doesn't have that out of it, because it's a mixed metal, it's
worthless. And in the same way, our souls
and our experience in this life, the Lord has to burn this stuff
out of us. He tells us over in Isaiah that He's chosen us not
as silver, but He's chosen us in the furnace of affliction.
This furnace of affliction is to purify our souls. It is to
burn out whatever this sin, whatever this is in us that would keep
us from coming to Christ. Some of us have to be beat down
further than others. Some of us have more in us that
must be burned out. Why does somebody else not have
as many trials as I've experienced? Because maybe I'd have a lot
more that needs burned out in me. That's the only reason why.
But what I do know is that the Lord is in the trial. And that
the faith that endures, that's the pure gold, the refining,
the purifying, the getting out of the unwanted, that to find
in the end that which he would find precious. That's what he
calls the trial of our faith, precious. Because the end result,
after the fire has heated it and burned it all out, it's different
than what it was before. It's changed forever. Now, your
faith will be tried, and not all faith endures. And if it
doesn't endure, and you go away, and you don't come back, then
that wasn't a true faith. That wasn't something that God
gave. If God gave you faith, there is no way that it will
not fail, because that faith is found in His Son, and He cannot
fail. And if it is a true faith that
does survive the trial, It's more valuable than pure gold.
First, purifying hardens. Whenever you have steel the way
it is, you have to heat it. You have to break it down and
make it weak. It becomes liquid to burn out
all the impurities. But then when it cools, when
the fire, the heat, the trial's over, it's stronger than it was
before. Whatever the fire, whatever the
heat was, that you got through, you're stronger coming out the
other end than when you started. It's lasting. Gold and things
in this world, things in this world that tangible we can have,
those can be gained, but those can also be lost. But no one
can take your faith from you. You take it wherever you go.
And if the Lord purifies us, if the Lord puts us through a
trial to solidify that faith, to burn out something in us,
we can rest assured we will have that faith. His promise, Wiz,
is that he won't leave us. And so in order for us to see
that in his son, we have to be given that faith. And I speak
for myself here, I also speak, I know I speak for many of you,
that Those of you who have been through something hard, many
things hard, on the other side of it, after that experience
of trial and fire and pain, would you trade not having the pain
for the loss of the strengthening of your faith? I can say in my
experience, no. And I know that you can say that
too. It's harder than anything you ever thought that you'd go
through, but on the other side, you can see the Lord had a purpose
in this. The Lord built me up, He brought me through, and it
has increased my faith, and I can hold on to Him and look to Him,
and His faithfulness to me in a different way that I couldn't
see it before. Seeing is now believing, because now I've experienced
it, and He's put me through it. Now, when you're in the midst
of it, the fire's hot. You can't say that. There's no
way that you can enter into that. If anything, you just say, deliver
me from this. I want this to stop now. But
that's in the middle of it. But when all that's burned out,
in the end, we're left with something more pure than gold. It's a faith
that endures. Well, in verse five, he says
regarding glorying in your patience and faith and persecutions and
tribulations that you endure, these aren't a bad thing. In
fact, this is a token of the righteous judgment of God. This
is not a negative judgment, this is a positive judgment. It's
a judgment declaring you righteous, that you may be counted worthy
of the kingdom of God for which you suffer. This is a mark of
your salvation in being put through these things. If we believe the
truth of this book and have a true faith, let's not be accused of
opening somebody else's mail. Now, if I'm someone who does
not believe and understand who Christ is, I can't claim that
for me because I don't know who He is. But to those whom it's
written that they believe in Christ, your faith endures, your
faith is exceedingly growing. They can lay claim to that, that
they are worthy of the kingdom. It's a badge of honor, my faith
is real, and by his grace, my faith has endured. I may be scarred,
broken, may be recovering forever in my time in this life. You
remember when Jacob fought with the angel? He limped the rest
of his life. That was over for years. He still
carried that limp with him all his life from that experience.
So we will carry scars from these things that we go through and
are tried with in this life, but a faith that endures is stronger
than whatever you're being tried with. He says you are counted
worthy to enter the kingdom of God. And back to that story I
gave with the men that were faced with going into the fiery furnace,
they said, our God may deliver us to the king when he said,
you bow down, and if you don't, I'm gonna throw you in the fire.
They said, our God may deliver us, but if he doesn't, we still
won't bow. Faith means more than your own
life. I may, it may be the sinking
of the ship with me to hang on with this. It may be that, but
that to me, because I know what the end is. And hanging on and
holding on to that faith, it makes me worthy to enter the
kingdom. Now that's a faith that he has
to give. It's one that only he can bless and grow and cause
to be a real faith. But we're still called on to
believe. So we can't go into this and
not think, well, you know, I just don't have to believe. He'll
have to work that out. No, we have to believe. A faith
that endures. So in verse six it says, and
this is speaking of those faithful who are counted worthy to enter
the kingdom, seeing that it is a righteous thing with God to
repay tribulation to them that trouble you. Does that mean what
it says? That's some pretty foreboding
words, them that trouble you, those who are called the faithful.
Well, the best way I can say is this, you can trouble and
you can persecute me and I'll be mad and I won't like that
and I'll fight against it. But if you do it to my children,
you will see a whole different level of response of anger, and
fighting back against that persecution trial than had you done it to
me. If this is my reaction as a man,
what level of response will be given from the living God from
whom the earth trembles at his presence when someone persecutes
and troubles one of his children? And we are his children. And
so he does not take this lightly. And I personally believe. This
is repayment in this life, in verse six, because in verse seven,
it goes on to talk about the end times, a second level of
repayment. To those of you who are troubled,
rest with us when the Lord shall be revealed from heaven with
his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who are those who will endure this vengeance in flaming
fire in this last day? And in verse eight, he tells
us, them that know not God. When God is revealed as who he
really is, men hate him because they find out they can't control
him and they find out they are utterly guilty before him and
there's nothing that they can say. The God that's preached
today is not the God as who he represents himself in this book.
That's a manipulatable God. The God of the Old Testament,
when you read about him, he's big, he's mean, he's angry. Nobody can read that and conclude,
we don't want anything to do with that one. That is the same
God that we deal with today. He said, I change not. I am the
Lord, I change not. Therefore, you sons of Jacob
are not consumed. He's no different today. people who know not God, and
secondly it says that they obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. What is it to obey the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, He tells us, it's to believe
on Him whom He hath sent. If we believe on him whom he
hath sent, believing on him is more than believing existed.
Believing on him is knowing that if he doesn't save me, I will
not be saved. And if he doesn't do something
for me, I am utterly lost. If he doesn't find me, I won't
be found. If he doesn't give me faith, I won't have faith.
And if he doesn't shed his blood for me, I'll stand guilty before
God and I have no excuse. That is what it is to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's Christ alone that must redeem
you. It's Christ alone that can come before the Father, because
I can't. And it's Christ alone that can present a righteousness
that His Father demands perfection. Not the best that we can do,
but perfection. Christ alone can provide that.
We can't. It's in Christ alone these things are found. To add
or remove anything from the work of Christ These verses will then
apply to us. If we take away anything from
what he did or add to it and say, I have to do this to make
it work. If I don't do this, then if I don't accept that,
then it doesn't work. The book of Revelation speaks
on that. If you add anything to this book, these plagues will
be added to you. And in verses 9 and 10 he says, who shall be
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of our Lord
and from the glory of his power. And when he shall come to be
glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe
because our testimony among you was believed in that day. His
glory is in what? He tells us it's in his saints.
That doesn't mean the apostles. The saints are every believer
in Christ. Saint just means sanctified one,
one who is made holy. Well, there's only one who's
holy. That's God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is holy. In order to be in God's presence,
I must be holy, so I must be part of his body. He is the head
and we are the body, and therefore we are holy. And in verse 11,
he says, Wherefore, we also pray for you that our God would count
you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure
of his goodness and the work of faith with power. Why would
he do all that? Why? That the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in Him. How's that possible? We're part
of the same person. For me to be glorified in Him,
I've got to be part of Him. For Him to be glorified in me,
the only way it could be is that I'm in Him because there's nothing
glorious in me. According to the grace of God
and the Lord Jesus Christ, He tells us the reason why. So our
prayer to God, knowing this, knowing these things, are to
ask for a faith that grows exceedingly. For that's what, when Paul commended
them, that's what they noticed. And what is the evidence of a
faith that grows exceedingly? It's love to the brethren. And
in loving the brethren, we're loving our great brother, the
Lord Jesus Christ. All right, I'll leave you there.