II Thessalonians 3
Introduction: Over the weeks of our studies in I and II Thessalonians, we’ve made note of many different individuals who left a distinguishing mark on our world. Perhaps you remember the nominees for the Darwin Awards for 1999, the West Texas gas company employees and the South African hospital cleaning lady. Both of these nominees made very significant marks, though tragic, on our world.
Then there was William Brown who had the hopeful face in Moscow. We included Arminius, the liberator of Germany from the Romans, and we saw Harrison Ford take a huge step of faith as Indiana Jones in the third movie, “The Last Crusade”. We also met Simon Bolivar, the liberator of five South American countries -- what an impact he made! We looked briefly at Scott Fischer, a veteran of Mount Everest, and we learned a bit about Walter Payton, the great running back for the Chicago Bears. We saw the impact made by Turlough O’Carolan, the Irish harpist, and we were fascinated by the school drop-out, Peter Giannini who in time bought the Bank of America.
We were challenged by the Iwo Jima flag raisers and the huge impact they made in 1940’s America. We learned the story of Grandma Moses, America’s best known folk-art painter, and we marveled that archeologist Heinrich Schliemann was able to discover the ancient city of Troy by reading the old classics.
We saw a brief part of the lives of Mike Schmidt, one of baseball’s most valuable players, Walter Reed, the vanquisher of yellow fever, Mary Lou Retton, the premier gymnast, and Lyman Spitzer, the driving force behind the Hubble Space Telescope.
Each one of these individuals made a conspicuous, telltale mark upon this world of ours. Each one did something that the rest of the world noted as uniquely his.
By way of introduction then, as we come to the last three verses of II Thessalonians, Paul tells us he leaves a distinguishing mark in every letter he writes. He makes a distinct stamp that identifies his letters as uniquely his. If the letter doesn’t have this mark, then it’s not Paul’s. This mark of validation is one of three final points Paul makes as he finishes his letter. He offers a last prayer as his first point, and a benediction is his last.
These three points, simple, clear, straightforward, become a launching pad for some final applications we want to make as we say good-by to 2 Thessalonians. Our text reads like this: 2 Thess 3:16-18 “Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all! I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”
Let’s take Paul’s middle point first. His mark of validation is his handwriting. He says, “This is the way I write.” No doubt a secretary took his letter down as he dictated it, and Paul signed off on it at the end. His personal greeting, in his own hand, marked the letter as his. We’ve all seen these kinds of letters, written by a secretary, and signed by the author.
As I think of application and what this could mean to us, consider that this same Paul described the Corinthians as “… our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men,…” (2 Cor. 3:2). He further wrote that these Corinthians are “a letter of Christ.” (2 Cor. 3:3).
So, if Paul had a particular mark that identified his letters, and if we are “letters of Christ” as the believers at Corinth were, able to be read by others --- what would be our distinguishing mark? What is that feeling that comes to mind in the hearts of those who interface with us in the community? What word do folks here in the church use as the particular qualifier of our life? If those we work with were to select one or two terms to describe us, what would it be? What is that distinguishing mark of our life?
Let me share what some our your marks are! I know I’m taking some risk here, but you know me as a risk-taker. I like how Lon Solomon said it in the latest “Leadership Journal.” He is the senior pastor of McLean Bible Church in McLean, VA., and he tells people who are considering membership there with them: “If you don’t like taking risks, this may not be the place for you – for at any given moment, we are a nanosecond away from disaster.” And since I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow, I can afford to take some risks today. Anyway…
Art Mahan has marked us with the video images he finds each week to make more clear the message I’m trying to communicate. He does that faithfully along with setting up the sound equipment. If you doubt that mark upon us, watch what happens when he’s away!
Terri Brooks and Judy Sutherland have good histories with our children’s choirs, nurturing our little ones in the truths of the faith. How we have been blessed with the music that comes through their leadership!
Ron Sutherland has marked all of us with most of the creative ideas that have blossomed around here. Several years ago Bob and Jean and Suzie and I went to Ohio for a seminar on creativity led by the great Howard Hendricks. On the little test for creativity we took at the end, I ranked last among the four of us. Did that cause me some concern? Not in the least, for I have lunch with Ron just about every week.…
Keri Manganello has marked this church family week after week on Sunday mornings and at funerals and weddings with her great skills at the piano. I am told her abilities and skills in the sight reading of music are beyond compare.
Virgil Corll has left his mark all over our facilities with numerous remodeling projects -- woodwork, cabinets, countertops, plumbing, painting, door locks, you name it; Virgil’s done it.
Geoff Schwartz is just a younger Virgil. Known for doing things right, Geoff has been resodding the grass around our parking lot, removing and replacing rotting railroad ties; he built the concrete retaining wall on the east side of the gym, and has plans to begin to pour curbing around the parking lot.
Ron Dudleston has marked this church family with his get-it-done approach to any kind of project. Whether it’s a BASSYCS banquet, or the food you ate in the park on July the 2nd, or these communion elements we’ll be sharing shortly, Ron is completely dependable with every project he undertakes.
Cindy Callison has left her green thumbprint on our sanctuary, altar table, and both entryways. Her skills with plants and artificial plants, wreaths and bows has said to visitors that this is a warm place to come for worship.
I doubt that many of you know that Bob Hodge has unique skills in the arena of stains, lacquers, varnishes, and other wood finishes. The new trim for these sanctuary windows that is awaiting installation is absolutely beautiful -- something special for this church building from Bob’s careful hands.
The one who takes care of our financial books and records, Barb Valerio, is a great steward of the funds that are given by us to the work of the ministry here. She has pinched every penny that has come through the offerings -- most, twice! -- so that the funds you entrust to us go as far as possible.
Any of us who know Mike Koch know that there isn’t anything he can’t do. If an elevator chair needs to be installed for Teresa Smith on the stairs of the funeral home, he’ll make sure it’s done, even if it has to be repaired, rebuilt, remodeled and adjusted. And when he finishes, it will work. I know; I rode it myself.
A person doesn’t have to be here long before he/she comes to know Pam Harrison is the congregation’s nurse. Pam will take your call and give you the right kind of counsel. She was still at the hospital with the Seaman family long after Alan and I left on the day Rick died.
Kathy Herrmann has left her mark all over this community. If someone needs to know what color scheme would be just perfect, he calls Kathy. The paint on the town depot was chosen by Kathy; the carpet used anywhere in the university was picked out by Kathy; the color scheme for this very room is the result of her gifted eyes. She has chosen carpet to replace this current floor covering -- when the funds come in to do that.
Everywhere I go in this community the patients of Heidi Lakanen tell me what a wonderful doctor she is. If anything ever happens to my doctor, I’m going to get on her waiting list. I remember the fellows coming back from Honduras one year relating accounts of how John Lakanen, a chemistry professor at the “other” university, had a daily devotion or commentary on something unique and unknown there in the jungle that everyone found fascinating. Of course, we all know that John and Heidi’s primary contribution to this church family is a little boy called David.
And who can tell me what Chuck Stevens has done to mark this church body? The better question is, “Who cannot tell me who Chuck Stevens is?” Greeter and recaller of names like no one else I know.
Ken and Beth Smith are master hosts, marking all of us with their gifts and resources of hospitality. There are not two harder workers in the area of trustees and music than these two.
Suzie Heth has brought credit to this congregation through her volunteer service to the elementary school. In fact she put together a whole program of volunteers that has helped the school staff immensely. And if a person ever needs an in-depth Biblical and theological study of any topic, thoroughly researched and footnoted, Bill Heth’s work will be complete.
And who hasn’t had a lump in his throat and tears on her face when some of our youth, led and trained by Joanne Seaman, have signed a particularly moving song or hymn in a worship service?
Larry Winterholter has impressed me as a superb communicator, saying powerful things in the emotional contexts of weddings and funerals and I’m left wondering, “How does he do that?”
Gary Johnson has always been available to help us with electrical wiring issues here in the church. If it’s tough, he can figure it out. And I’ve always been impressed with the breadth of Gary’s reading interests. He’s shared books with me -- bought me some -- from a great variety of topics and subjects.
Mark Cosgrove has often pinch hit for me here in this pulpit, and many of us appreciate his teaching, but I’m more impressed with the three young men that have grown up in that home, each one polite, courteous, responsible, and someone to make a mom and dad proud. It doesn’t hurt that their roots are in Texas, too.
Suzie’s folks are with us today; many of you have met them in their visits over the years. I’ve told you before of Bill Sweaney’s almost fifty years of ministry to the 2 year olds in his large church in Arlington, TX. There must be at least 10,000 people who know this man as Uncle Bill. Talk about leaving one’s mark on the world….
Sam Cocking is the kind of friend you need for troubled times. She and her husband Kent are generous, too, with the fruit of their Asian pear tree. In season, Kent brings them to our elder meetings -- healthier for us than those marvelous cookies Sam sends during the rest of the year!
Well, I’ve gone way too long on this segment of this message this morning, but I didn’t know where to stop! And there are many more of you who call this church your home that also deserve mentioning. Perhaps there’ll be another opportunity in another sermon soon….
But the point is clear, isn’t it? Paul left a distinguishing mark on all his letters. That mark proved its authenticity. As living letters of Christ read by many in our community, we leave a distinguishing mark wherever we go as well. That mark needs to authenticate our relationship with Christ.
And that leads us to Paul’s first point -- his last written prayer in this letter for his friends. “Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!”
I want to make a couple of observations about this prayer. First, when we think of peace, we generally mean an absence of strife or a cessation of hostilities or a tranquil mind. But in the Scriptures, it means so much more than that. When Paul writes to the Romans (16:20), he describes the God of peace bruising Satan “under your feet shortly.” In a context of what seems like war, God is designated the God of peace. Paul wants us to know this peace, Biblically speaking, means a sense of general well-being. The Hebrew word, shalom, from which Paul would draw his meaning, has the thought of completeness, soundness, welfare.
And so often this ‘well-being’, this ‘spiritual wholeness and soundness,’ occurs in the context of struggle. It is possible to experience spiritual well-being, ‘a prosperity of soul’ (Leon Morris) all the while facing conflict, strife, and tragedy!
It can happen to us and for us and in us because of the Lord of peace. He is the One Who grants it. John reminds us of Jesus’ offer in his gospel (14:27), “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” What an incredible peace He offers! While in the garden, Jesus asks His disciples, (Matt 26:53) “Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”
Remember the great storm we mentioned two weeks ago from Acts 27? When everyone has abandoned all hope of being delivered from death to safety, Paul is very much one who is at peace.
Notice in Paul’s prayer the use of the terms ‘continually’ and ‘in every circumstance’. Tell me, friends, what is not covered in the words ‘continually’ and ‘in every circumstance’? Describe for me in your own minds one condition or situation that lies beyond the parameters of ‘continually’ and ‘in every circumstance’.
A tragic accident? The sudden death of a family member or close friend? The diagnosis of a dread disease? A collapsing economy? (Ever wonder why those who handle our investments are called brokers?) The onset of unrelenting pain? A bad call by the umpire calling your son’s game? Shocking, unfounded gossip circulating about you? An unwanted pregnancy? Passed over for promotion? No, not one of these conditions escapes the lasso of ‘continually’ and ‘in every circumstance’.
My friends, there is nothing in this world that would mark us as followers of Christ better than a mind at peace, continually and in every circumstance. This peace is not just for an apostle named Paul or the Son of Man called Jesus. It is for all of us, too! We can leave a legacy like all of you that I’ve mentioned this morning from our church, or we could leave a heritage like all the people we’ve mentioned in the course of our Thessalonian studies… but nothing would quite compare to the aura of well-being that Biblical peace denotes, especially in every circumstance and situation.
The Lord’s presence makes that a very real possibility. Paul’s prayer is that “the Lord be with you all.” The proof of His presence is His peace.
And His grace, in Paul’s benediction, is the icing on the cake. Verse 18: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” God’s unmerited favor, His grace, makes possible peace in every circumstance. Whatever boat we are in, whatever storm blows up, whatever wind and whatever waves have blocked out our vision, God’s grace and the presence of the Lord Jesus guard our hearts with peace.
When Paul wrote to the Philippians about the peace of God guarding our hearts (4:7), he used the picture of military garrisons built near the gates of a city. From these garrisons soldiers could monitor the gates and control all the traffic. Any and every type of the wrong kind of traffic would be stopped and prevented from entering the city.
The analogy to peace and our hearts is quite clear. When the wrong kind of traffic seeks to enter… traffic like anxiety, anger, arrogance, bad attitude, belittling, bedlam, crankiness, crabbiness, conceit, etc., etc., the soldiers of peace lower the crossbars and prevent entrance.
(Conclusion) So, friends, what kind of mark distinguishes us? Do we know enough of the reality of God’s presence and His grace to be marked by peace all the time and in every situation? Is this living letter that is our life like a piece of junk mail easily tossed aside, or is it like a warm, personal letter quickly opened and quickly devoured?
“Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all! I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”
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Thursday, June 5, 2008
Playing hookie: Don't do it in church
II Thessalonians 3
Introduction: Lyman Spitzer put the universe in focus. Christopher Tyner, in the July 7 Investor’s Business Daily, gives us a glance at the life of this Princeton University astronomer who was the driving force behind the Hubble Space Telescope. Spitzer, believe it or not, proposed the idea of a space telescope in 1946, a full 12 years before NASA even came into being!
Though his idea ignited skepticism and rejection, he persisted with discipline and diligence. The $2.1 billion space telescope, aloft now for ten years orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth , sent back pictures in early ’96 that astounded the world. Through its lens, pointed at a small patch of dark sky just above the Big Dipper, came the sight of 1500 galaxies spinning alongside each other at the edge of the universe. One scientist called this sensational discovery the astronomical equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Lyman Spitzer was a man of incredible discipline and diligence. His friends said of him, “He had a sense of obligation and responsibility and a sense of wanting to do what is right for the long range of the scientific enterprise, independent of what was good for Lyman Spitzer. He was a consummate politician, but unlike the ordinary political politician, he is someone who spoke only accurately and only the truth. He never engaged in hyperbole.”
We are incredibly richer today because of the discipline of a single astrophysicist who went diligently about his business, focused on his goal, taking small steps every day toward the realization of his dream.
We are not surprised to come to the next-to-last segment of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians and find him writing about the value and fruit of a disciplined life -- in Christ. What Paul writes holds no secrets. As we look at this text this morning, we will not find something new and startling; none of us will leave here marveling that we had never seen this important truth before. For those of us who want to know Christ better and walk more closely with Him, we won’t find any 1-2-3 step process to follow and imitate.
But, as is always the case when we consider the Scriptures, we need to interact with his challenges and consider again why it is important to be disciplined in this matter of following Christ. All of us can leave here more committed to improving our walk with the Savior because of what we see here – if we want to!
Our text is 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15. “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you;
not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”
Our text unfolds around 4 commands that Paul gives to his friends under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
The first we see at both the beginning and the end of our passage. In verse 6 and in verses 14-15, Paul commands the Thessalonians to withdraw from unruly brothers.
The second imperative is found in verses 10-12, and that instruction is to the unruly brothers – “Work in a quiet fashion and eat your own bread.”
The third mandate covers verses 7-9 and consists of “Follow our example!”
The final order is verse 13: “Don’t grow weary of doing good!”
Out of these four injunctions we can draw some lessons that will improve the quality of our lives as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s consider each one as the text develops and draw our own applications for today.
First, there is the bookend command to withdraw from unruly brothers. To stress his point, Paul starts and finishes this segment with the same emphatic point. In the NASV, we read “to keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life…” and “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him…”
The concept of ‘withdraw’ here is the image of “furling a sail.” As a sail is coiled up or curled up, so the Thessalonian believers are to retreat within themselves, away from the offenders, so the unruly sense a gap opening between themselves and the others.
The term ‘unruly’ conveys the image of “playing hooky”. We all understand how students who skip school, who cut classes, define the term ‘unruly’. They are a picture of a lack of personal discipline. They skip out on their assigned responsibilities, their expected behavior. ‘Unruly’ in a military context describes an army in disarray, men out of rank. When Santa Ana’s troops were outflanked by General Winfield Scott at the Battle of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War, their flight in retreat was a perfect picture of ‘unruly’ – disarray to the max, headlong, pell-mell retreat back toward Mexico City.
There were some believers in the Thessalonian church who were known for their ‘playing hooky’ in the Christian life. It is clear from the original text that Paul knew specifically who these individuals were. The ‘some among you’ of verse 11 gives the impression that Paul knows the names of these playing hooky but has chosen to not give their names. He had addressed this problem in I Thessalonians; it hadn’t been corrected; and now he returns more sternly to the issue. Perhaps some of the brethren, feeling like they had missed the coming of the Lord, (chapter 2), had lost their sense of purpose and had given up on their commitment to keep on keeping on. Whatever the basic reason, there were some in this church (a great church, but not a perfect church), there were some in this church who had lost their vision, had lost their focus, and their lives reflected that fact in the undisciplined way they went about life day to day.
Because these specific individuals had not responded with repentance after his first letter, Paul commands a form of church discipline that requires some separation. Paul does not have in mind an absolute break (we see in verse 15 a place for ‘admonishment’ which implies contact and communication), but he does mean a withdrawal from intimate fellowship.
This withdrawal of close fellowship would be a shaming condition that ought to lead to repentance on the part of those known as unruly.
Though there is much more to understand here, one lesson we can draw is this: “The church is a fellowship of accountability.” When we place our membership here, or if we come regularly and call this our home church, we open ourselves up to each other in ways that are unique in this world. The blessings of intimacy and the joys of sharing the deep things of our lives carry the corresponding elements of accountability and admonishment. Lest that cause anyone of us fear, be reminded that the church is God’s agent for reaching a lost world. It is also His means of growing us into the image of His Son. The momentary hurt or embarrassment of rebuke by a loving brother is completely offset by the eternal reward and glory of becoming more faithful as followers of the Savior.
If we choose to be unruly, undisciplined, to ‘play hooky’ in the church, the church has the responsibility to withdraw, to withhold the deeper forms of intimacy and fellowship.
The second command is based in verses 10-12 and is addressed to the unruly. “Work in quiet fashion and eat your own bread.” Paul wants those who “are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies” (vs. 11) to get to work and provide for themselves. Their laziness must cease; their mooching off of others must stop. Paul uses a play on words here that means “busybodies instead of busy”. Their lack of work and idleness was one problem; it had led to another – that of meddling in the affairs of others. Swindoll says that “busybodies flit from house to house taking little nectared drops of gossip with them, leaving behind their own residue of irritating pollen.”
It is in this context that the issue of ‘unruly brothers’ really finds definition. Those “playing hooky” in their Christian lives evidence laziness, sponging off of others, and gossiping. Without work to do, with lots of free time on their hands, without a vision for their calling in Christ, hardened to Paul’s admonition in the first letter, these brothers have slipped into a pattern of living that was unworthy of the Savior’s sacrifice on their behalf.
Friends, as I think of this second command of Paul’s, I cannot think of a single individual in our church family who ought to hear this precise ultimatum. Perhaps some of us know some spongers and moochers, some who are lazy and unwilling to work, who ought to be here today, but none come to my mind.
For those of us involved in our Helping Hand ministry, the bread route and the food pantry, the Thanksgiving baskets and the Christmas gifts, we are overdue in needing to re-evaluate how we make food available to those who ask for assistance. Are we helping those with legitimate needs, or are we making it easy for those who ask to continue to be lazy and irresponsible?
But as we think about application, and as we consider some of the implications of ‘unruly’ and ‘undisciplined’, it is fair to state this lesson: (Lesson Two) “The church is a work of responsibility.” To sign on to projects and to then to disappear is undisciplined irresponsibility. Work, friends, at fulfilling the promises you have made. To join a meeting in progress because we didn’t know what time it was is evidence of undisciplined irresponsibility. Work, friends, at being on time and being in rank along with the rest of the committee.
How many times have we made commitments to ministries and then backed out, leaving the rest of the team holding a now-heavier load? Work, friends, at carrying your part of the load you said you’d carry with diligence and grace. This is a great church, friends, but it’ll be even greater when these kinds of occurrences become rare around here. Leave the playing of hooky to someone else. Everything, and I mean everything, we see of the Lord Jesus, the founder of the church, and everything we see of the apostle Paul, the builder of the church, is a work of responsibility. The church was worthy of their disciplined, diligent work. It must be for us, too.
The third command in our text is “Follow our example.” In verses 7-9, Paul twice says ‘to follow our example’. His example is seen in concrete terms: Verse 8 tells us “that with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you.” He and his team did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it.
He had not been unruly nor undisciplined in his efforts on their behalf, and he wanted them to pick up on that same pattern. He didn’t ask these believers to do something that he himself was not doing. Paul was very conscientious and responsible in his relationship with the members of the Thessalonian church. He paid his own way; he picked up his own tab; he willingly forfeited his rights as an apostle to set the example before these friends that ‘if a person will not work, then he is not to eat, either’.
Paul’s example of a disciplined life brings to mind an account of Robert E. Lee I read this week in Jeff Shaara’s book, Gone For Soldiers. Before the battle of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War, Captain Lee and a young enlisted man by the name of Fitzwalter are sent out to scout a way around Santa Ana’s force blocking the road to Mexico City. On their recon patrol, they come across a small spring of cool, sparkling, bubbling, running water. Being the officer and gentleman that Lee was, Lee let Fitzwalter take the first refreshing drink.
Before Lee had a chance to take a drink, the two Americans heard the voices and boots of approaching Mexican soldiers. Lee shoved the young Fitzwalter back down the path they had come to take cover in the shrubs there, and Lee himself dove behind a log beside the spring. The log was about 3 feet in diameter and Lee squeezed himself as far down behind the log as he could possible get.
Thus began a long afternoon of numbing stillness and silence as Mexican soldiers came and went, never leaving the spring completely unoccupied. Lee, not having had a chance for a drink, is getting more and more thirsty with each passing hour. Fortunately, the soldiers continue to come and depart the spring from the other side of the log. Lee prays through his trial, “God help me. God protect me.”
While lying there, Captain Lee feels a stab of pain in his back that he later discovers to be a cone shaped rock. His thought at the moment: “With just one more second, I could have swept that rock away. Another message from God. ‘You will stay awake’”.
Finally, with the coming of dusk, the Mexican soldiers return to their camps. Shaara writes: “He (Lee) tried to move his right leg, realized now both legs were completely numb. He pulled himself clear of the log, his legs dead weight, saw movement, under the log, and now a large hairy spider moved into the open, stopped, and Lee stared at it through watery eyes, thought, Yes, sorry old fellow. No doubt, I was the intruder. He slid his legs farther out, rolled to the side, unclenched his left hand, slowly, painfully, moved his arm down his leg, began to massage it.
The feeling crept into his legs, the slow spread of the tingling, the awful prick of a thousand needles. He rubbed harder, worked the stiffness out of his hand, tried to lift his head, and suddenly his hat fell off, rolled on its brim down the short hill. He felt a laugh trembling inside him, but he knew he could not make a sound. He looked down at the hat, thought, Well, thank you for doing that now. He was completely clear of the log, looked back underneath, saw the stain of wetness, saw now the small pebble that had been under his back, a tiny cone of rock.
He leaned over, picked it up, slipped it into his pocket, thought, I will remember you. He tried to stand, leaned against the log, slowly pulled himself up, and now there was a sound, behind him, from down the hill. He reached for the pistol, felt the ice in his chest, saw motion, the brush moving, then a figure, a man. It was Fitzwalter.
The young man moved quickly up the rise, and Lee saw the smile, a toothy grin, and Fitzwalter whispered, “Quite a day, eh, sir? Thought they’d never leave.”
Lee tried to speak. “Where did you go?”
“Right down there, sir. Just in those bushes there. I could see ‘em just fine. Could see you too, sir. If they’d a found you, I was ready.” He tapped the pistol in his belt. “We’d have made some noise, that’s for sure.”
Lee nodded, could see the young man’s excitement, thought, Yes, remember this day. You will never have another one like it.” When Lee finally gets a chance to get a drink himself, he finds himself thinking, “Not today. It was not my time. Thank you, God.”
The young American soldier Fitzwalter was given an afternoon-long lesson in the importance and the virtue of discipline. He saw first-hand a real live example, modeled before his very eyes, of the kind of discipline that can save a life.
Interestingly, that was exactly what Paul was doing for his new friends in the Thessalonian church. He was modeling the kind of discipline and training that would save their lives. No wonder he would repeatedly say, “Follow our example.”
The lesson for us is just this: “Following the example of a disciplined church leader will save your life!” How incredibly important it is that the church’s leaders live model lives of diligence and discipline! How incredibly important it is that church members follow the example of these kinds of leaders.
If we as pastors and elected church leaders do not measure up as models of disciplined lives, we need your admonishment! If we as members of this church refuse to follow good leadership, we need exhortation to get with the program. Our mission depends upon it. Our vision depends upon it. A lost world depends upon it. The discouraged, the depressed, the hopeless, and the wandering depend upon it. There is a great deal to be said about losing our souls that has nothing to do with heaven or hell. There is a whole dimension to saving our lives that has nothing to do with deathbeds. Being delivered from an unruly life is to be delivered from all kinds of heartbreak, pain, and unpleasant consequences IN THIS LIFE HERE AND NOW.
Leaders, be an example. Friends, please follow.
The fourth command is seen in verse 13: “Don’t grow weary of doing good.” The original text implies that these believers had not begun to grow weary, and Paul wants to make sure they don’t start down that road. John Calvin’s comment here is helpful: “…however ingratitude, moroseness, pride, arrogance and other unseemly dispositions…may have a tendency to annoy us, or to dispirit us, from a feeling of weariness, we must strive, nevertheless, never to leave off aiming at doing good.” ‘Doing good’ means doing the noble thing. As long as the Lord delays His coming, regardless of the unruliness and undisciplined living of others, we must continue to measure up to our high calling, and we must do it day after day.
The lesson is easily stated. “Even when others don’t and won’t, keep on with a noble heart.” It will be worth it on a certain coming day.
(Conclusion) In the 19th century, yellow fever attacked 500,000 people in the United States and it killed 90,000. It was the determined discipline of Army major Walter Reed that led to the discovery that mosquitoes were the culprits. Reed ascertained that “a female mosquito could get the yellow fever virus from a victim only in the first two or three days of the disease, and that approximately two weeks had to pass before the virus could multiply sufficiently within the mosquito to enable it to infect another person.”
On the basis of Reed’s hard work and important discoveries, a vaccine for yellow fever was developed in 1937 by Dr. Max Theiler. Who among us hasn’t heard of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.?
We may be more successful in moving away from an unruly life if we can visualize ourselves ‘playing hooky’. What we would not think of doing when we were going to school is something we fall into all too often in our life in the church. Don’t do, friends. There’s way too much at stake.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Introduction: Lyman Spitzer put the universe in focus. Christopher Tyner, in the July 7 Investor’s Business Daily, gives us a glance at the life of this Princeton University astronomer who was the driving force behind the Hubble Space Telescope. Spitzer, believe it or not, proposed the idea of a space telescope in 1946, a full 12 years before NASA even came into being!
Though his idea ignited skepticism and rejection, he persisted with discipline and diligence. The $2.1 billion space telescope, aloft now for ten years orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth , sent back pictures in early ’96 that astounded the world. Through its lens, pointed at a small patch of dark sky just above the Big Dipper, came the sight of 1500 galaxies spinning alongside each other at the edge of the universe. One scientist called this sensational discovery the astronomical equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Lyman Spitzer was a man of incredible discipline and diligence. His friends said of him, “He had a sense of obligation and responsibility and a sense of wanting to do what is right for the long range of the scientific enterprise, independent of what was good for Lyman Spitzer. He was a consummate politician, but unlike the ordinary political politician, he is someone who spoke only accurately and only the truth. He never engaged in hyperbole.”
We are incredibly richer today because of the discipline of a single astrophysicist who went diligently about his business, focused on his goal, taking small steps every day toward the realization of his dream.
We are not surprised to come to the next-to-last segment of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians and find him writing about the value and fruit of a disciplined life -- in Christ. What Paul writes holds no secrets. As we look at this text this morning, we will not find something new and startling; none of us will leave here marveling that we had never seen this important truth before. For those of us who want to know Christ better and walk more closely with Him, we won’t find any 1-2-3 step process to follow and imitate.
But, as is always the case when we consider the Scriptures, we need to interact with his challenges and consider again why it is important to be disciplined in this matter of following Christ. All of us can leave here more committed to improving our walk with the Savior because of what we see here – if we want to!
Our text is 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15. “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you;
not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.
For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”
Our text unfolds around 4 commands that Paul gives to his friends under the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
The first we see at both the beginning and the end of our passage. In verse 6 and in verses 14-15, Paul commands the Thessalonians to withdraw from unruly brothers.
The second imperative is found in verses 10-12, and that instruction is to the unruly brothers – “Work in a quiet fashion and eat your own bread.”
The third mandate covers verses 7-9 and consists of “Follow our example!”
The final order is verse 13: “Don’t grow weary of doing good!”
Out of these four injunctions we can draw some lessons that will improve the quality of our lives as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s consider each one as the text develops and draw our own applications for today.
First, there is the bookend command to withdraw from unruly brothers. To stress his point, Paul starts and finishes this segment with the same emphatic point. In the NASV, we read “to keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life…” and “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him…”
The concept of ‘withdraw’ here is the image of “furling a sail.” As a sail is coiled up or curled up, so the Thessalonian believers are to retreat within themselves, away from the offenders, so the unruly sense a gap opening between themselves and the others.
The term ‘unruly’ conveys the image of “playing hooky”. We all understand how students who skip school, who cut classes, define the term ‘unruly’. They are a picture of a lack of personal discipline. They skip out on their assigned responsibilities, their expected behavior. ‘Unruly’ in a military context describes an army in disarray, men out of rank. When Santa Ana’s troops were outflanked by General Winfield Scott at the Battle of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War, their flight in retreat was a perfect picture of ‘unruly’ – disarray to the max, headlong, pell-mell retreat back toward Mexico City.
There were some believers in the Thessalonian church who were known for their ‘playing hooky’ in the Christian life. It is clear from the original text that Paul knew specifically who these individuals were. The ‘some among you’ of verse 11 gives the impression that Paul knows the names of these playing hooky but has chosen to not give their names. He had addressed this problem in I Thessalonians; it hadn’t been corrected; and now he returns more sternly to the issue. Perhaps some of the brethren, feeling like they had missed the coming of the Lord, (chapter 2), had lost their sense of purpose and had given up on their commitment to keep on keeping on. Whatever the basic reason, there were some in this church (a great church, but not a perfect church), there were some in this church who had lost their vision, had lost their focus, and their lives reflected that fact in the undisciplined way they went about life day to day.
Because these specific individuals had not responded with repentance after his first letter, Paul commands a form of church discipline that requires some separation. Paul does not have in mind an absolute break (we see in verse 15 a place for ‘admonishment’ which implies contact and communication), but he does mean a withdrawal from intimate fellowship.
This withdrawal of close fellowship would be a shaming condition that ought to lead to repentance on the part of those known as unruly.
Though there is much more to understand here, one lesson we can draw is this: “The church is a fellowship of accountability.” When we place our membership here, or if we come regularly and call this our home church, we open ourselves up to each other in ways that are unique in this world. The blessings of intimacy and the joys of sharing the deep things of our lives carry the corresponding elements of accountability and admonishment. Lest that cause anyone of us fear, be reminded that the church is God’s agent for reaching a lost world. It is also His means of growing us into the image of His Son. The momentary hurt or embarrassment of rebuke by a loving brother is completely offset by the eternal reward and glory of becoming more faithful as followers of the Savior.
If we choose to be unruly, undisciplined, to ‘play hooky’ in the church, the church has the responsibility to withdraw, to withhold the deeper forms of intimacy and fellowship.
The second command is based in verses 10-12 and is addressed to the unruly. “Work in quiet fashion and eat your own bread.” Paul wants those who “are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies” (vs. 11) to get to work and provide for themselves. Their laziness must cease; their mooching off of others must stop. Paul uses a play on words here that means “busybodies instead of busy”. Their lack of work and idleness was one problem; it had led to another – that of meddling in the affairs of others. Swindoll says that “busybodies flit from house to house taking little nectared drops of gossip with them, leaving behind their own residue of irritating pollen.”
It is in this context that the issue of ‘unruly brothers’ really finds definition. Those “playing hooky” in their Christian lives evidence laziness, sponging off of others, and gossiping. Without work to do, with lots of free time on their hands, without a vision for their calling in Christ, hardened to Paul’s admonition in the first letter, these brothers have slipped into a pattern of living that was unworthy of the Savior’s sacrifice on their behalf.
Friends, as I think of this second command of Paul’s, I cannot think of a single individual in our church family who ought to hear this precise ultimatum. Perhaps some of us know some spongers and moochers, some who are lazy and unwilling to work, who ought to be here today, but none come to my mind.
For those of us involved in our Helping Hand ministry, the bread route and the food pantry, the Thanksgiving baskets and the Christmas gifts, we are overdue in needing to re-evaluate how we make food available to those who ask for assistance. Are we helping those with legitimate needs, or are we making it easy for those who ask to continue to be lazy and irresponsible?
But as we think about application, and as we consider some of the implications of ‘unruly’ and ‘undisciplined’, it is fair to state this lesson: (Lesson Two) “The church is a work of responsibility.” To sign on to projects and to then to disappear is undisciplined irresponsibility. Work, friends, at fulfilling the promises you have made. To join a meeting in progress because we didn’t know what time it was is evidence of undisciplined irresponsibility. Work, friends, at being on time and being in rank along with the rest of the committee.
How many times have we made commitments to ministries and then backed out, leaving the rest of the team holding a now-heavier load? Work, friends, at carrying your part of the load you said you’d carry with diligence and grace. This is a great church, friends, but it’ll be even greater when these kinds of occurrences become rare around here. Leave the playing of hooky to someone else. Everything, and I mean everything, we see of the Lord Jesus, the founder of the church, and everything we see of the apostle Paul, the builder of the church, is a work of responsibility. The church was worthy of their disciplined, diligent work. It must be for us, too.
The third command in our text is “Follow our example.” In verses 7-9, Paul twice says ‘to follow our example’. His example is seen in concrete terms: Verse 8 tells us “that with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you.” He and his team did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it.
He had not been unruly nor undisciplined in his efforts on their behalf, and he wanted them to pick up on that same pattern. He didn’t ask these believers to do something that he himself was not doing. Paul was very conscientious and responsible in his relationship with the members of the Thessalonian church. He paid his own way; he picked up his own tab; he willingly forfeited his rights as an apostle to set the example before these friends that ‘if a person will not work, then he is not to eat, either’.
Paul’s example of a disciplined life brings to mind an account of Robert E. Lee I read this week in Jeff Shaara’s book, Gone For Soldiers. Before the battle of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War, Captain Lee and a young enlisted man by the name of Fitzwalter are sent out to scout a way around Santa Ana’s force blocking the road to Mexico City. On their recon patrol, they come across a small spring of cool, sparkling, bubbling, running water. Being the officer and gentleman that Lee was, Lee let Fitzwalter take the first refreshing drink.
Before Lee had a chance to take a drink, the two Americans heard the voices and boots of approaching Mexican soldiers. Lee shoved the young Fitzwalter back down the path they had come to take cover in the shrubs there, and Lee himself dove behind a log beside the spring. The log was about 3 feet in diameter and Lee squeezed himself as far down behind the log as he could possible get.
Thus began a long afternoon of numbing stillness and silence as Mexican soldiers came and went, never leaving the spring completely unoccupied. Lee, not having had a chance for a drink, is getting more and more thirsty with each passing hour. Fortunately, the soldiers continue to come and depart the spring from the other side of the log. Lee prays through his trial, “God help me. God protect me.”
While lying there, Captain Lee feels a stab of pain in his back that he later discovers to be a cone shaped rock. His thought at the moment: “With just one more second, I could have swept that rock away. Another message from God. ‘You will stay awake’”.
Finally, with the coming of dusk, the Mexican soldiers return to their camps. Shaara writes: “He (Lee) tried to move his right leg, realized now both legs were completely numb. He pulled himself clear of the log, his legs dead weight, saw movement, under the log, and now a large hairy spider moved into the open, stopped, and Lee stared at it through watery eyes, thought, Yes, sorry old fellow. No doubt, I was the intruder. He slid his legs farther out, rolled to the side, unclenched his left hand, slowly, painfully, moved his arm down his leg, began to massage it.
The feeling crept into his legs, the slow spread of the tingling, the awful prick of a thousand needles. He rubbed harder, worked the stiffness out of his hand, tried to lift his head, and suddenly his hat fell off, rolled on its brim down the short hill. He felt a laugh trembling inside him, but he knew he could not make a sound. He looked down at the hat, thought, Well, thank you for doing that now. He was completely clear of the log, looked back underneath, saw the stain of wetness, saw now the small pebble that had been under his back, a tiny cone of rock.
He leaned over, picked it up, slipped it into his pocket, thought, I will remember you. He tried to stand, leaned against the log, slowly pulled himself up, and now there was a sound, behind him, from down the hill. He reached for the pistol, felt the ice in his chest, saw motion, the brush moving, then a figure, a man. It was Fitzwalter.
The young man moved quickly up the rise, and Lee saw the smile, a toothy grin, and Fitzwalter whispered, “Quite a day, eh, sir? Thought they’d never leave.”
Lee tried to speak. “Where did you go?”
“Right down there, sir. Just in those bushes there. I could see ‘em just fine. Could see you too, sir. If they’d a found you, I was ready.” He tapped the pistol in his belt. “We’d have made some noise, that’s for sure.”
Lee nodded, could see the young man’s excitement, thought, Yes, remember this day. You will never have another one like it.” When Lee finally gets a chance to get a drink himself, he finds himself thinking, “Not today. It was not my time. Thank you, God.”
The young American soldier Fitzwalter was given an afternoon-long lesson in the importance and the virtue of discipline. He saw first-hand a real live example, modeled before his very eyes, of the kind of discipline that can save a life.
Interestingly, that was exactly what Paul was doing for his new friends in the Thessalonian church. He was modeling the kind of discipline and training that would save their lives. No wonder he would repeatedly say, “Follow our example.”
The lesson for us is just this: “Following the example of a disciplined church leader will save your life!” How incredibly important it is that the church’s leaders live model lives of diligence and discipline! How incredibly important it is that church members follow the example of these kinds of leaders.
If we as pastors and elected church leaders do not measure up as models of disciplined lives, we need your admonishment! If we as members of this church refuse to follow good leadership, we need exhortation to get with the program. Our mission depends upon it. Our vision depends upon it. A lost world depends upon it. The discouraged, the depressed, the hopeless, and the wandering depend upon it. There is a great deal to be said about losing our souls that has nothing to do with heaven or hell. There is a whole dimension to saving our lives that has nothing to do with deathbeds. Being delivered from an unruly life is to be delivered from all kinds of heartbreak, pain, and unpleasant consequences IN THIS LIFE HERE AND NOW.
Leaders, be an example. Friends, please follow.
The fourth command is seen in verse 13: “Don’t grow weary of doing good.” The original text implies that these believers had not begun to grow weary, and Paul wants to make sure they don’t start down that road. John Calvin’s comment here is helpful: “…however ingratitude, moroseness, pride, arrogance and other unseemly dispositions…may have a tendency to annoy us, or to dispirit us, from a feeling of weariness, we must strive, nevertheless, never to leave off aiming at doing good.” ‘Doing good’ means doing the noble thing. As long as the Lord delays His coming, regardless of the unruliness and undisciplined living of others, we must continue to measure up to our high calling, and we must do it day after day.
The lesson is easily stated. “Even when others don’t and won’t, keep on with a noble heart.” It will be worth it on a certain coming day.
(Conclusion) In the 19th century, yellow fever attacked 500,000 people in the United States and it killed 90,000. It was the determined discipline of Army major Walter Reed that led to the discovery that mosquitoes were the culprits. Reed ascertained that “a female mosquito could get the yellow fever virus from a victim only in the first two or three days of the disease, and that approximately two weeks had to pass before the virus could multiply sufficiently within the mosquito to enable it to infect another person.”
On the basis of Reed’s hard work and important discoveries, a vaccine for yellow fever was developed in 1937 by Dr. Max Theiler. Who among us hasn’t heard of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.?
We may be more successful in moving away from an unruly life if we can visualize ourselves ‘playing hooky’. What we would not think of doing when we were going to school is something we fall into all too often in our life in the church. Don’t do, friends. There’s way too much at stake.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
The perfect harbor for every storm
II Thessalonians 3
Introduction: “The Perfect Storm” is a new movie just released. I haven’t seen it yet, but I have seen the advertisements, and I’m impressed with the scene of a fishing boat headed almost straight up into a tsunami-size, monster wave. The boat is completely dwarfed by the size of that wave. I would not want to be on that small a boat in that kind of storm! I suppose ‘the perfect storm’ would have to have those kinds of waves.
Let’s leave the perfect storm behind for a moment and, on the other hand, consider some of the magnificent harbors that our Creator God crafted when He was creating the world. I haven’t been to Pearl Harbor yet, but from the pictures I’ve seen, it is a dazzling jewel perched just above the surface of the mighty Pacific. Some of us have been to Lake Tahoe in northern California, and we remember that small harbor on the west side of the lake that has the small gazebo built on the tiny island in the center. What a place of calm surrounded by incredible beauty! Suzie and I are planning a trip later this summer up to Copper Harbor in northern Michigan. We’ve seen pictures and heard stories of the area, and we want to see it with our own eyes. Copper Harbor was a place of calm for ships from the storms that could blow up on the Great Lakes.
In Acts 27 Luke records the journey of Paul to Rome as a prisoner, accompanied, interestingly, by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. In his travelogue, Luke tells of a harbor on the south side of Crete called “Fair Havens”. Verse 12 tells us it was “not suitable for wintering” so the captain put out to sea from there, “if somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.” Of course we know the rest of the story. A violent wind, called Euraquilo, rushes down upon them and they find themselves caught in the grips of a devastating storm, one so bad that “…since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm was assailing us, from then on all hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned.” (Acts 27:20) Sounds to me like Paul and Luke and Aristarchus got caught in the “Perfect Storm”.
Great storms and magnificent harbors….when we come to our text in 2 Thessalonians today, we come to a passage that is best understood in the light of these two distinct images – the storm and the harbor. These two images are inseparably linked, and they offer us great encouragement for living well today.
We all have had experiences with storms, and we all know how precious a harbor is in a storm. Some of us have experienced literal storms, like tornadoes, hurricanes, violent thunderstorms, earthquakes, hail, and the like. I have vivid memories, even at my age, of being in a ‘storm cellar’ in Oklahoma in my youth, hearing a radio with more static on it than weather reports, feeling the tension in the air at the prospect of an approaching tornado. I was just glad at that time to be in a place that afforded protection from what sounded like and felt like something really terrible.
When Suzie, Toby and I went to Indonesia, we stopped in Taiwan along the way and spent a night in the Grand Hotel in Taipei. During our stay there a huge earthquake occurred on the northern end of the island, and I remember being in the lobby of this fine hotel watching the giant panes of glass on the ground level vibrating back and forth. I wondered if our missionary career might end before it really began. But the hotel withstood the shock and we were safe.
But let’s move beyond the literal this morning. All of us have experienced the reality of other kinds of storms. All of us who are married, I would guess, have known stormy times in our relationships. All of us who have lived very long at all have known the storms of suffering and rejection, the tempests of pain and opposition, and the squalls of grief, disappointments, and failed expectations. Well, that’s where Paul is when he pens this passage, and the harbor, the refuge, the sanctuary that he retreats to is also the harbor, the refuge, the sanctuary that we can withdraw to as well.
Friends, I don’t know what tomorrow holds or what next week may bring in the way of storms. Life certainly dispenses plenty of disappointments; debilitating disease is an ever present reality; and who hasn’t known the sorrowful pangs of death? But regardless of the nature of the storms, I know where the harbor is, and it’s important to me that you do as well.
It is a pitiful sight to see Job sitting in his pile of ashes, but how much more saddening if he never found a safe harbor from the storm of his trials.
It is a pathetic sight to visualize Jonah sinking into the depths of the sea and being entangled in seaweed to the point of drowning, but how much more depressing if he never found a place of safety.
How unnerving to see Joseph languishing unjustly in a dark, foul prison, but how much more disheartening if he never found release!
Harbors were made for storms, and storms have no real impact on those who are safely moored in a harbor.
Well, let’s consider Paul’s counsel to the Thessalonians and learn some lessons we can take home and put into practice. Our passage is 2 Thess 3:1-5 “Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you; (2) and that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men; for not all have faith. (3) But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. (4) We have confidence in the Lord concerning you, that you are doing and will continue to do what we command. (5) May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.”
The first image we want to see and understand is that of a storm. We see this mental picture of ‘storm’ in what Paul refers to as the opposition of evil. In verse two, he makes mention of evil and perverse men that he wanted to be rescued from. In verse three, he references the enemy, the evil one, that the church would need protection from. And in verse 5, he uses the word ‘direct’ (“May the Lord direct your hearts…”) which suggests the removal of obstacles or hindrances from growth in the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.
Paul is corresponding with the Thessalonians about those elements of life that constituted what we can easily see as storms. He had experienced the high winds of opposition to his work of sharing the Gospel. Evil and perverse men had sought to cut his legs out from under him at many points along his journey. The expression in verse one, that “the word of the Lord will spread rapidly”, means “to have free course.” Paul knew what it meant to have the spreading of the Word blocked. He knew what it was like to be blocked himself. Though the word had spread rapidly and had been glorified in the Thessalonian context, it wasn’t that way everywhere! Paul’s desire was that the storms of evil hurdles, perverse barriers, and depraved ‘construction zones’ would not be effective in limiting the Gospel’s progress.
I was driving through Arkansas recently on I-40 between Little Rock and Memphis when the traffic was squeezed down from two lanes into one lane each way, eastbound and westbound. I lost a lot of time sitting in neutral as a lot of traffic had to be reordered along a five mile stretch of highway.. When I finally passed the construction zone, you can imagine my chagrin to find no work taking place, not even any workers in sight. It is an understatement to say that a storm cloud passed through my mind!
Paul had known these kinds of storms that stifled the progress of the life-giving Gospel. He had suffered the hurricanes of evil that sought to destroy his mission of bringing salvation to the lost. He knew the spiritual tornadoes that the devil was able to whip up to create havoc and destruction upon the newly established church in Thessalonica. Paul was wise to the stormy schemes of the enemy that sought to keep these believers from growing stronger in the love of God and in the endurance of Christ.
Spiritual storms in the forms of evil opposition were a fact of life for the great apostle as he sought to accomplish his calling from the Lord. They are a reality for all of us just as well.
But there is another image here in our text, and it is a comforting one. It is the image of a harbor, a safe place, a sanctuary of refuge. The harbor is seen here in the dynamic relationship between Paul the apostle, the Thessalonian believers, and the Lord Jesus, the head of the church.
Paul asks in verse one that the church pray for him (“Finally, brethren, pray for us…”). In verse 5, we see Paul praying for the church (“May the Lord direct your hearts…”). In verse one, Paul had shared the word with the Thessalonians. In verse 4, it is clear that the church had responded to the word from Paul and was continuing to respond. The church had a good track record of obedience to Paul’s teaching and he expected that they would continue in that same path. (“We have confidence in the Lord concerning you, that you are doing and will continue to do what we command.”)
Verses 3 and 4 also state clearly that the Lord Jesus was involved in this dynamic relationship. It would be He Who would faithfully strengthen and protect them all. It would be the Lord Jesus Who was the source of Paul’s confidence in the Thessalonian church. It would be the Lord Jesus Who would direct their hearts into a growing love for God and into a growing capacity for endurance like Christ’s.
This image of a safe harbor grows out of what we see of the life of this church. The Lord Jesus as the Head of the church was imparting His life to the members. He was providing protection from the evil one and removing the barriers of evil men. The apostle Paul, as the church planter and pastor/teacher, was imparting his life and the Word of God to the members. He was praying for them and encouraging them and instructing them and expecting their positive response. The church members, as the unique and gifted individuals of the Body, were responding and obeying and praying and growing in love and endurance.
The three parts of this dynamic circle of life – the Lord, the apostle, the church members --, interacting together, made for the perfect refuge from every storm. Of course the wings of demons would stir up terrifying storms; of course the evil one would howl and roar like a tornado; of course perverse men would threaten and mock and ridicule like the blast of a raging forest fire; of course enemy agents of destruction could appear like a flash flood… but the church was a harbor where piers would be sturdy and hawsers or mooring lines would hold. The storms would be real, but the harbor would be safe.
Let’s draw some lessons out of what we’ve learned from our text this morning.
Lesson One, Prayer is one element that makes a church life dynamic. The Lord Jesus, the only One Who can provide real security and real protection, the only One Who can remove obstacles and barriers, the only One Who can nurture love and endurance, the Lord Jesus is moved by our prayer. Nothing expresses a sense of dependency like prayer does. As Paul was dependent upon the Lord Jesus (the one to Whom he is praying here), so he also is dependent upon the prayers of this church on his behalf.
Never ever let it be said in this church that we as pastors and elders, the spiritual leaders and teachers in the Body, do not need your prayer support. Some tell me regularly that they pray daily for me. Nothing in the world means more to me! Nothing in the world makes me more effective. Nothing in the world makes a greater impact through me. Paul knew the Thessalonians would pray for him. The praying church is the safest harbor in the world.
Lesson Two, Obedience to the Word is another element that makes a church a harbor. When we take seriously the counsel, the admonition, the challenge of the Word of God, we develop relationships like those described in Ecclesiastes 4:12 that are not easily broken. You see, the 32 ‘one another’ passages in the New Testament require that we forgive one another, that we love one another, that we serve one another, that we confess our sins to one another, that we not complain against one another, that we stimulate one another to love and good deeds, that we be at peace with one another, that we be devoted to one another, that we give preference to one another, that we not judge one another, that we be of the same mind one with another, that we build up, accept, admonish, and encourage one another, that we bear with one another, that we comfort and show tolerance to one another, that we be kind, hospitable, and subject to one another, that we not lie to one another, and a few more ‘one anothers’.
Who would not want to be a part of a church like that? Who could not weather any storm with friends in the church like that? Friends who would not judge, who would accept, comfort, bear with, be kind to, not complain against, etc., etc.? Who would not want to be in that kind of harbor when the storms of life are raging?
One widow in our church was so cared for after the sudden death of her husband and the father of her children, her sister, not yet in the household of faith, was heard to say, “When I get sick, I want to come here and be cared for by your friends.” The Thessalonian church had a reputation and a track record of doing what Paul instructed. The obedient church is the safest harbor in the world!
Lesson Three, Harbor churches keep in sight the character of God, not the strength of the enemy. Paul reminds his friends here that ‘the Lord is faithful’. He is the One who will strengthen them, and He is the One who will protect them. He is absolutely dependable, 100% responsible, fully committed to their welfare, their growth, their victories.
Of course the enemy is evil and perverse; of course he throws up road-blocks, hurdles, and obstacles. Of course we who are buffeted by him find it easy to be focused on the elements of the storm swirling about us. When Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on water to the Lord Jesus, he was doing just great… until he was distracted by the elements of the storm. When he became focused on the wind and the waves, when he lost sight of the Master, he began to sink.
And we begin to sink when our grief becomes that which fills our horizon instead of the glory that the faithful Lord has promised to us who suffer. We begin to fall when the insults of ungodly, unprincipled people capture our minds and displace the Lord’s encouragement to follow Him through that kind of opposition.
But the Lord is faithful, and the great storms of the enemy are no match for the harbor that is the pure character of the Lord Jesus. The faithfulness of God and His loyal-love are to be our focal point as we seek to be the kind of church that provides sanctuary to all those buffeted by the storms of life. Harbor churches keep in sight the character of God, not the strength of the enemy.
(Conclusion)Well, friends, since storms are a fact of life, it’s so very important that we know where the harbor is. Paul knew that the Thessalonians would fare well in the dynamic relationship that was the church, the Lord, and the apostle. We will cope well with what life dishes out to us if we too retreat often into the relationships that make us this church great – our relationships together, our relationship together with the Lord, and our commitments to follow the leadership and the teaching of our spiritual leaders.
It would be good today to spot check this relationship I’ve been talking about. Are there any ‘one anothers’ we need to mend? Are there elements of focus that need to be sharpened? Are there commitments to prayer and obedience that need strengthening? Let’s don’t get caught in a storm out of reach of the harbor! And perhaps worse, let’s not fail those storm-tossed by failing to be the harbor they need when their storms are raging.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Introduction: “The Perfect Storm” is a new movie just released. I haven’t seen it yet, but I have seen the advertisements, and I’m impressed with the scene of a fishing boat headed almost straight up into a tsunami-size, monster wave. The boat is completely dwarfed by the size of that wave. I would not want to be on that small a boat in that kind of storm! I suppose ‘the perfect storm’ would have to have those kinds of waves.
Let’s leave the perfect storm behind for a moment and, on the other hand, consider some of the magnificent harbors that our Creator God crafted when He was creating the world. I haven’t been to Pearl Harbor yet, but from the pictures I’ve seen, it is a dazzling jewel perched just above the surface of the mighty Pacific. Some of us have been to Lake Tahoe in northern California, and we remember that small harbor on the west side of the lake that has the small gazebo built on the tiny island in the center. What a place of calm surrounded by incredible beauty! Suzie and I are planning a trip later this summer up to Copper Harbor in northern Michigan. We’ve seen pictures and heard stories of the area, and we want to see it with our own eyes. Copper Harbor was a place of calm for ships from the storms that could blow up on the Great Lakes.
In Acts 27 Luke records the journey of Paul to Rome as a prisoner, accompanied, interestingly, by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. In his travelogue, Luke tells of a harbor on the south side of Crete called “Fair Havens”. Verse 12 tells us it was “not suitable for wintering” so the captain put out to sea from there, “if somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.” Of course we know the rest of the story. A violent wind, called Euraquilo, rushes down upon them and they find themselves caught in the grips of a devastating storm, one so bad that “…since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm was assailing us, from then on all hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned.” (Acts 27:20) Sounds to me like Paul and Luke and Aristarchus got caught in the “Perfect Storm”.
Great storms and magnificent harbors….when we come to our text in 2 Thessalonians today, we come to a passage that is best understood in the light of these two distinct images – the storm and the harbor. These two images are inseparably linked, and they offer us great encouragement for living well today.
We all have had experiences with storms, and we all know how precious a harbor is in a storm. Some of us have experienced literal storms, like tornadoes, hurricanes, violent thunderstorms, earthquakes, hail, and the like. I have vivid memories, even at my age, of being in a ‘storm cellar’ in Oklahoma in my youth, hearing a radio with more static on it than weather reports, feeling the tension in the air at the prospect of an approaching tornado. I was just glad at that time to be in a place that afforded protection from what sounded like and felt like something really terrible.
When Suzie, Toby and I went to Indonesia, we stopped in Taiwan along the way and spent a night in the Grand Hotel in Taipei. During our stay there a huge earthquake occurred on the northern end of the island, and I remember being in the lobby of this fine hotel watching the giant panes of glass on the ground level vibrating back and forth. I wondered if our missionary career might end before it really began. But the hotel withstood the shock and we were safe.
But let’s move beyond the literal this morning. All of us have experienced the reality of other kinds of storms. All of us who are married, I would guess, have known stormy times in our relationships. All of us who have lived very long at all have known the storms of suffering and rejection, the tempests of pain and opposition, and the squalls of grief, disappointments, and failed expectations. Well, that’s where Paul is when he pens this passage, and the harbor, the refuge, the sanctuary that he retreats to is also the harbor, the refuge, the sanctuary that we can withdraw to as well.
Friends, I don’t know what tomorrow holds or what next week may bring in the way of storms. Life certainly dispenses plenty of disappointments; debilitating disease is an ever present reality; and who hasn’t known the sorrowful pangs of death? But regardless of the nature of the storms, I know where the harbor is, and it’s important to me that you do as well.
It is a pitiful sight to see Job sitting in his pile of ashes, but how much more saddening if he never found a safe harbor from the storm of his trials.
It is a pathetic sight to visualize Jonah sinking into the depths of the sea and being entangled in seaweed to the point of drowning, but how much more depressing if he never found a place of safety.
How unnerving to see Joseph languishing unjustly in a dark, foul prison, but how much more disheartening if he never found release!
Harbors were made for storms, and storms have no real impact on those who are safely moored in a harbor.
Well, let’s consider Paul’s counsel to the Thessalonians and learn some lessons we can take home and put into practice. Our passage is 2 Thess 3:1-5 “Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord will spread rapidly and be glorified, just as it did also with you; (2) and that we will be rescued from perverse and evil men; for not all have faith. (3) But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. (4) We have confidence in the Lord concerning you, that you are doing and will continue to do what we command. (5) May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.”
The first image we want to see and understand is that of a storm. We see this mental picture of ‘storm’ in what Paul refers to as the opposition of evil. In verse two, he makes mention of evil and perverse men that he wanted to be rescued from. In verse three, he references the enemy, the evil one, that the church would need protection from. And in verse 5, he uses the word ‘direct’ (“May the Lord direct your hearts…”) which suggests the removal of obstacles or hindrances from growth in the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.
Paul is corresponding with the Thessalonians about those elements of life that constituted what we can easily see as storms. He had experienced the high winds of opposition to his work of sharing the Gospel. Evil and perverse men had sought to cut his legs out from under him at many points along his journey. The expression in verse one, that “the word of the Lord will spread rapidly”, means “to have free course.” Paul knew what it meant to have the spreading of the Word blocked. He knew what it was like to be blocked himself. Though the word had spread rapidly and had been glorified in the Thessalonian context, it wasn’t that way everywhere! Paul’s desire was that the storms of evil hurdles, perverse barriers, and depraved ‘construction zones’ would not be effective in limiting the Gospel’s progress.
I was driving through Arkansas recently on I-40 between Little Rock and Memphis when the traffic was squeezed down from two lanes into one lane each way, eastbound and westbound. I lost a lot of time sitting in neutral as a lot of traffic had to be reordered along a five mile stretch of highway.. When I finally passed the construction zone, you can imagine my chagrin to find no work taking place, not even any workers in sight. It is an understatement to say that a storm cloud passed through my mind!
Paul had known these kinds of storms that stifled the progress of the life-giving Gospel. He had suffered the hurricanes of evil that sought to destroy his mission of bringing salvation to the lost. He knew the spiritual tornadoes that the devil was able to whip up to create havoc and destruction upon the newly established church in Thessalonica. Paul was wise to the stormy schemes of the enemy that sought to keep these believers from growing stronger in the love of God and in the endurance of Christ.
Spiritual storms in the forms of evil opposition were a fact of life for the great apostle as he sought to accomplish his calling from the Lord. They are a reality for all of us just as well.
But there is another image here in our text, and it is a comforting one. It is the image of a harbor, a safe place, a sanctuary of refuge. The harbor is seen here in the dynamic relationship between Paul the apostle, the Thessalonian believers, and the Lord Jesus, the head of the church.
Paul asks in verse one that the church pray for him (“Finally, brethren, pray for us…”). In verse 5, we see Paul praying for the church (“May the Lord direct your hearts…”). In verse one, Paul had shared the word with the Thessalonians. In verse 4, it is clear that the church had responded to the word from Paul and was continuing to respond. The church had a good track record of obedience to Paul’s teaching and he expected that they would continue in that same path. (“We have confidence in the Lord concerning you, that you are doing and will continue to do what we command.”)
Verses 3 and 4 also state clearly that the Lord Jesus was involved in this dynamic relationship. It would be He Who would faithfully strengthen and protect them all. It would be the Lord Jesus Who was the source of Paul’s confidence in the Thessalonian church. It would be the Lord Jesus Who would direct their hearts into a growing love for God and into a growing capacity for endurance like Christ’s.
This image of a safe harbor grows out of what we see of the life of this church. The Lord Jesus as the Head of the church was imparting His life to the members. He was providing protection from the evil one and removing the barriers of evil men. The apostle Paul, as the church planter and pastor/teacher, was imparting his life and the Word of God to the members. He was praying for them and encouraging them and instructing them and expecting their positive response. The church members, as the unique and gifted individuals of the Body, were responding and obeying and praying and growing in love and endurance.
The three parts of this dynamic circle of life – the Lord, the apostle, the church members --, interacting together, made for the perfect refuge from every storm. Of course the wings of demons would stir up terrifying storms; of course the evil one would howl and roar like a tornado; of course perverse men would threaten and mock and ridicule like the blast of a raging forest fire; of course enemy agents of destruction could appear like a flash flood… but the church was a harbor where piers would be sturdy and hawsers or mooring lines would hold. The storms would be real, but the harbor would be safe.
Let’s draw some lessons out of what we’ve learned from our text this morning.
Lesson One, Prayer is one element that makes a church life dynamic. The Lord Jesus, the only One Who can provide real security and real protection, the only One Who can remove obstacles and barriers, the only One Who can nurture love and endurance, the Lord Jesus is moved by our prayer. Nothing expresses a sense of dependency like prayer does. As Paul was dependent upon the Lord Jesus (the one to Whom he is praying here), so he also is dependent upon the prayers of this church on his behalf.
Never ever let it be said in this church that we as pastors and elders, the spiritual leaders and teachers in the Body, do not need your prayer support. Some tell me regularly that they pray daily for me. Nothing in the world means more to me! Nothing in the world makes me more effective. Nothing in the world makes a greater impact through me. Paul knew the Thessalonians would pray for him. The praying church is the safest harbor in the world.
Lesson Two, Obedience to the Word is another element that makes a church a harbor. When we take seriously the counsel, the admonition, the challenge of the Word of God, we develop relationships like those described in Ecclesiastes 4:12 that are not easily broken. You see, the 32 ‘one another’ passages in the New Testament require that we forgive one another, that we love one another, that we serve one another, that we confess our sins to one another, that we not complain against one another, that we stimulate one another to love and good deeds, that we be at peace with one another, that we be devoted to one another, that we give preference to one another, that we not judge one another, that we be of the same mind one with another, that we build up, accept, admonish, and encourage one another, that we bear with one another, that we comfort and show tolerance to one another, that we be kind, hospitable, and subject to one another, that we not lie to one another, and a few more ‘one anothers’.
Who would not want to be a part of a church like that? Who could not weather any storm with friends in the church like that? Friends who would not judge, who would accept, comfort, bear with, be kind to, not complain against, etc., etc.? Who would not want to be in that kind of harbor when the storms of life are raging?
One widow in our church was so cared for after the sudden death of her husband and the father of her children, her sister, not yet in the household of faith, was heard to say, “When I get sick, I want to come here and be cared for by your friends.” The Thessalonian church had a reputation and a track record of doing what Paul instructed. The obedient church is the safest harbor in the world!
Lesson Three, Harbor churches keep in sight the character of God, not the strength of the enemy. Paul reminds his friends here that ‘the Lord is faithful’. He is the One who will strengthen them, and He is the One who will protect them. He is absolutely dependable, 100% responsible, fully committed to their welfare, their growth, their victories.
Of course the enemy is evil and perverse; of course he throws up road-blocks, hurdles, and obstacles. Of course we who are buffeted by him find it easy to be focused on the elements of the storm swirling about us. When Peter stepped out of the boat to walk on water to the Lord Jesus, he was doing just great… until he was distracted by the elements of the storm. When he became focused on the wind and the waves, when he lost sight of the Master, he began to sink.
And we begin to sink when our grief becomes that which fills our horizon instead of the glory that the faithful Lord has promised to us who suffer. We begin to fall when the insults of ungodly, unprincipled people capture our minds and displace the Lord’s encouragement to follow Him through that kind of opposition.
But the Lord is faithful, and the great storms of the enemy are no match for the harbor that is the pure character of the Lord Jesus. The faithfulness of God and His loyal-love are to be our focal point as we seek to be the kind of church that provides sanctuary to all those buffeted by the storms of life. Harbor churches keep in sight the character of God, not the strength of the enemy.
(Conclusion)Well, friends, since storms are a fact of life, it’s so very important that we know where the harbor is. Paul knew that the Thessalonians would fare well in the dynamic relationship that was the church, the Lord, and the apostle. We will cope well with what life dishes out to us if we too retreat often into the relationships that make us this church great – our relationships together, our relationship together with the Lord, and our commitments to follow the leadership and the teaching of our spiritual leaders.
It would be good today to spot check this relationship I’ve been talking about. Are there any ‘one anothers’ we need to mend? Are there elements of focus that need to be sharpened? Are there commitments to prayer and obedience that need strengthening? Let’s don’t get caught in a storm out of reach of the harbor! And perhaps worse, let’s not fail those storm-tossed by failing to be the harbor they need when their storms are raging.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
The reward for those who endure
II Thessalonians 2
Introduction: When Harry Truman awarded the Medal of Honor to an American warrior, he is said to have commented, “I’d rather have one of these than be President.” What Truman was acknowledging was that there was (for him) more honor, more glory in a medal recognizing uncommon valor than there was in fulfilling the role of the chief executive office of the United States. The reward for exceptional courage under fire is a degree of glory.
General Thomas Jackson earned his nickname, “Stonewall” at Bull Run, the first battle of the Civil War. As he rode up and down his Confederate lines encouraging his men to hold their positions, fellow general Barnard Bee said, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.” Before the era of the Civil War, Jackson taught at the Virginia Military Institute as a veteran of the Mexican War. While teaching natural philosophy and artillery, he once scolded a student for what he thought was a wrong answer. But lying in bed that night, Jackson realized that the student was right. He arose, dressed, and walked through a cold rain to the student’s dorm and apologized for the scolding earlier in the day. As a deeply religious man, it was important to the general that wrongs be righted if possible. There was glory and honor in that kind of behavior. A legacy of honorable character carries its own reward of a dimension of glory.
Joe Rosenthal’s picture of the flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi electrified the nation. The war in the Pacific had been hard fought, and Americans were looking for inspiration and hope on that front. Government officials decided to call the men back to the States to participate in a war bond drive to raise money for the war effort. By the time that decision was made, only three of the men were still alive on the island, for the battle still raged. Marines Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon and Navy Corpsman Robert Bradley made tours all over the United States, participating in parades, banquets, and county fairs, giving speeches and promoting war bonds. They were always greeted with great respect, admiration, honor, and glory. Inspirational acts of a timely nature in the history of a nation merit the reward of a measure of glory.
I share these three brief cameos with you this morning because they illustrate a dimension of life that is the central theme of the text we come to today in our continuing study of 2 Thessalonians. What Harry Truman wished for himself, what Stonewall Jackson lived, and what the Iwo Jima veterans received was a degree of, a dimension of, a measure of glory. And amazingly, nestled here in Paul’s letter to his friends at Thessalonica, is an astounding revelation regarding glory! But this glory far outshines those illustrations I’ve shared this morning, for it is the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like comparing a lighted match to the brilliance of a lighthouse is the difference between these glories. And amazingly, this glory that belongs to Jesus is something we can gain! Imagine that, if you can!
As we ask God to speak to us today through His Word, I wonder what kinds of things we want to be recognized for. For in part, that is what glory is, recognition, commendation, and praise for deeds well done. Can’t every mom identify with the mother of James and John who asked Jesus if her two sons could sit on the right hand and left hand of the Lord in His kingdom? Her desire was for her sons to be recognized for their sterling qualities as disciples.
I am typically off on Wednesdays, and while working on the front porch of our house this past Wednesday, I was stopped in my work by a passing thunderstorm. (I seldom mind being stopped in any work—especially when it involves a paint brush!) I marveled at the awesome power of God that is so evident in long waves of rolling thunder. When a bolt of lightning struck nearby, the resounding crash of thunder was almost painful. I said out loud, “God, You are really something, there is no One like You.” Glory, in part you see, is also affirmation of greatness.
Whatever our dreams are, whatever our ambitions are, whatever our hopes and plans for life are, God has something magnificent in mind for those He loves. God has a plan to share with us the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through many varied and assorted avenues! What incredible affirmation and recognition God has in store for us in the Lord Jesus Christ! Interested? Would you like to know what to do, what to be, in order that the God who makes the heavens roar with thunder might share the glory of the Lord Jesus with us? Anyone interested in being affirmed and recognized and counted significant by the God of creation?
Paul wanted his Thessalonian friends to know the three things that were key in receiving this kind of commendation and praise from the God of heaven. God wants us to know them, too.
Our text today is 2 Thess 2:13-17 “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.”
This text pivots around verse 14. Perhaps you noticed that as we read. “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So what is this glory, is it worth our efforts, and if it is, what must we give attention to in gaining it?
We’ve already given some definitions to the concept of glory. The principal word in the Old Testament for glory carries the idea of being heavy, important, or awesome. In the New Testament, glory carries the added element of what someone thinks, or what something seems. When the Lord Jesus asked in the Garden of Gethsemane “Whom do you seek?”, the soldiers and priests said, “Jesus, the Nazarene.” When Jesus replied, “I am He,” the text tells us that they all drew back and fell to the ground. (John 18:6) What happened? When Jesus used the name of God, “I AM”, a burst of glory bowled everyone over.
When the shepherds heard the angels’ announcement of the birth of the Lord Jesus, they were dazzled with unbelievable splendor; the glory of the Lord shone around them.
So, when something or someone is awesome, and it or he is perceived to be awesome, that thing or that person has glory. Of course, the Lord Jesus has great glory. We know from the Scriptures that a day is coming when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord of all, interestingly, to the glory of God the Father.
The disciples with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration saw the glory of Jesus, according to Luke 9. “Some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming. (In Mark’s Gospel, His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.) And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep; but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.”
Now if gaining the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ means to us that we have shining faces and gleaming white clothes, maybe that’s not much of a goal to share in. It is so much more than that! Think Biblically with me for a moment. In Exodus 34, Moses’ face shone whenever he spoke to God. He had a glorious appearance when he came away from his encounters with God. Sharing in Christ’s glory suggests a radiance in appearance. We have all known and experienced the difference between a radiant face and a downcast one. And those faces are reflections of conditions in the heart. God intends that we gain a share in the glory of the Lord Jesus, that we have hearts at peace and hearts confidently trusting Him.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 3:17-18 about being transformed from glory to glory. He had in mind the gaining of Christ’s glory, a step-by-step process of being changed into the image of Christ. The things that frustrate us, the things that dominate us, the things that control us gradually lose their strength over us. We become more and more people of virtue and character and good reputation. We evidence more and more our relationship to the Lord by getting up in the cold of night to go and make an apology to someone we offended, or took advantage of, or cheated in some way. We become less and less individuals known for our lies and more and more people willing to pay the price to tell the truth.
There are many more issues related to the glory of Christ that we could discuss if we had the time, more than how a heart is transparent through a face and more than a process of transformation, but for now, I hope we all can see that obtaining a part in the glory of the Lord Jesus is indeed a worthwhile goal and objective. Only those who are content with their present slavery, only those who don’t care about the development of their character, only those who like their anxiety, their worries, and their sleepless nights, only these will have no interest in the following steps outlined by Paul.
The first step to gaining a share in the glory of Christ is being saved. We talked last week about what it means to be saved, how being saved is a good, solid Biblical concept, and now we see it again here in our text. Paul gives thanks to God in verse 13 “because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.”
Do you see how salvation happens? God chooses and we trust. The Holy Spirit begins the wooing activity of God. He begins to draw us apart; that’s what that big word, sanctification, means. The Holy Spirit of God tugs and nudges and convicts and challenges us toward something better than we’ve known so far. Then we reach a point where we decide to trust in that truth of the Gospel that has grown clearer and clearer. Paul says in verse 14, “It was for this He called you through our gospel…” The Gospel is that body of truth that we put our faith in. Faith is just another word for trust.
We come to understand our situation in sin before a holy God; we come to understand that God Himself made provision for our sin problem by allowing His Son to be crucified on the cross to pay our sin’s penalty; we come to understand that we need to accept that payment so we don’t have to pay ourselves by spending eternity in a place of punishment and torment.
In order to gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must begin by being saved. Some of here today are considering taking this first step. Our life just isn’t what we see others experiencing; we can’t seem to step away from our bad habits and character flaws; the attractions and allures of the world just don't provide long term satisfaction. That tugging by the Holy Spirit just won’t go away. Today would be a good day to say, “I’m ready to trust You, God.” “I’d like to get on the road to glory.”
The second step is endurance. Paul says in verse 15, “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” ‘Stand firm’ and ‘hold fast’ amount to endurance. ‘Hold fast’ conveys the picture of gripping something tightly with the hand. We remember that these new believers were suffering; they were under the pressures of afflictions and persecutions. Some were wavering under the false notions that the day of the Lord had come and gone without them. They were the ‘shaken’ and the ‘disturbed’ of verse 2. They had been shocked and that shock had turned into a state of jumpiness, worry, and constant fretting. Paul exhorts them to hold tightly to the truths, the traditions, they had been taught.
I suppose all of us have heard of Kevlar. It is the material that is 5 times stronger than steel (ounce for ounce) and lighter than fiberglass. It is used for bullet-proof vests that police officers wear, and it has saved the lives of more than 2000 officers since its discovery. More than half of the ships in the U.S. Navy have Kevlar mooring lines because they are light enough for a sailor to lift and yet strong enough to hold a ship in its place at the dock. People who regularly use a chain saw can buy chaps made from Kevlar to protect their legs.
Kevlar was the discovery of a chemist by the name of Stephanie Kwolek. When she came up with a cloudy chemical solution that she thought would be the foundation for the next generation of polymer fibers, her colleagues told her that cloudy solutions could not possibly generate polymer fibers. All chemists know that cloudiness in a solution usually indicates the presence of solid particles. Solid particles only clog up the holes in the spinneret which the solution has to go through in order to be made into fibers.
But Kwolek had a personality with a steely resolve as strong as Kevlar. She knew she had done her work right. She filtered her solution through the finest of filters and it was still cloudy. There just could not be particles in it. It was finally discovered that she had invented the world’s first synthetic liquid crystals. The cloudiness in the solution was due to light diffraction off of the crystals. When the solution was put through the spinneret, the crystals formed fibers that were strong, stiff, and when woven together became Kevlar.
Stephanie Kwolek knew what Paul meant when he said to stand firm and hold fast. Her endurance brought her sweet glory.
These Thessalonian believers were in need of endurance. And some of us are too. No one, friends, has ever obtained a place on the victor’s stand of glory without endurance. It just doesn’t happen. Job is a towering example of glory that is produced by endurance. Joseph is a shining model of the glory that perseverance produces. Jesus, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and sat down in glory at the right hand of the throne of God.
God wanted these new believers to stand firm and hold fast to the things they had been taught. And the same applies to us. We are to tightly grip the truth of the Gospel. We are to believe everyday that all things work together for good to those who love God. We are to never doubt that God is good. We are to be convinced every hour that all afflictions are producing an eternal weight of glory for those of us who know God. We are to regularly draw upon the truth that the Holy Spirit is our indwelling comforter and guide. We are to daily, expectantly look for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to always be alert to our enemy who, as a roaring lion, seeks to devour us.
It is these kinds of things we have been taught; these are our traditions that we want to grasp tightly and stand tall upon.
There’s a third step to glory; that is an engaged heart. Paul prays for his friends in verses 16 and 17 that “ … our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father…(will) comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.” Gaining the glory of the Lord Jesus is finally a matter of engaging our hearts in good work and good words. In the strength that God provides by His grace, we are to be saying good things and be doing good deeds.
Now as we’ve said before, in a context of suffering and pain, it is not easy to be others’ oriented. It is far easier to be crabby than it is to be comforting. It is a much bigger temptation to withdraw in pain than it is to be engaged in doing something for someone else. We understand this reality. Paul did, too. That’s why verse 16 and 17a precede the expectation of good work and good words. Let’s read them again: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts……..in every good work and word.”
It is God Who makes it possible for us to function in goodness when we find it impossible to do so. There is great glory to be gained when, at the outer boundaries of our strength, we tap into His resources and engage our hearts in good deeds and good words.
(Conclusion) So, friends, what do we say at the end of a text like this? We say, God is so great! He has a plan to share the glory of His dear Son with us! He has a plan to affirm us, to bring us recognition, to give us a reputation of virtue and character. He plans to bring us honor and esteem and glory! He has made a plan to bring us purpose and significance and meaning. He makes it possible for us to be saved! He provides the resources for us to engage our hearts and to keep on engaging them with endurance and perseverance!
And in the end, we get to stand before all the universe in the light and glory, in the acclaim and honor that by rights ought to be exclusively the domain of the Lord Jesus. Stand firm, friends; be engaged. One day, it will be worth it all. The reward for endurance, salvation’s glory, is reachable, it’s expected, and it is worth it. Don’t give up!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Introduction: When Harry Truman awarded the Medal of Honor to an American warrior, he is said to have commented, “I’d rather have one of these than be President.” What Truman was acknowledging was that there was (for him) more honor, more glory in a medal recognizing uncommon valor than there was in fulfilling the role of the chief executive office of the United States. The reward for exceptional courage under fire is a degree of glory.
General Thomas Jackson earned his nickname, “Stonewall” at Bull Run, the first battle of the Civil War. As he rode up and down his Confederate lines encouraging his men to hold their positions, fellow general Barnard Bee said, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.” Before the era of the Civil War, Jackson taught at the Virginia Military Institute as a veteran of the Mexican War. While teaching natural philosophy and artillery, he once scolded a student for what he thought was a wrong answer. But lying in bed that night, Jackson realized that the student was right. He arose, dressed, and walked through a cold rain to the student’s dorm and apologized for the scolding earlier in the day. As a deeply religious man, it was important to the general that wrongs be righted if possible. There was glory and honor in that kind of behavior. A legacy of honorable character carries its own reward of a dimension of glory.
Joe Rosenthal’s picture of the flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi electrified the nation. The war in the Pacific had been hard fought, and Americans were looking for inspiration and hope on that front. Government officials decided to call the men back to the States to participate in a war bond drive to raise money for the war effort. By the time that decision was made, only three of the men were still alive on the island, for the battle still raged. Marines Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon and Navy Corpsman Robert Bradley made tours all over the United States, participating in parades, banquets, and county fairs, giving speeches and promoting war bonds. They were always greeted with great respect, admiration, honor, and glory. Inspirational acts of a timely nature in the history of a nation merit the reward of a measure of glory.
I share these three brief cameos with you this morning because they illustrate a dimension of life that is the central theme of the text we come to today in our continuing study of 2 Thessalonians. What Harry Truman wished for himself, what Stonewall Jackson lived, and what the Iwo Jima veterans received was a degree of, a dimension of, a measure of glory. And amazingly, nestled here in Paul’s letter to his friends at Thessalonica, is an astounding revelation regarding glory! But this glory far outshines those illustrations I’ve shared this morning, for it is the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like comparing a lighted match to the brilliance of a lighthouse is the difference between these glories. And amazingly, this glory that belongs to Jesus is something we can gain! Imagine that, if you can!
As we ask God to speak to us today through His Word, I wonder what kinds of things we want to be recognized for. For in part, that is what glory is, recognition, commendation, and praise for deeds well done. Can’t every mom identify with the mother of James and John who asked Jesus if her two sons could sit on the right hand and left hand of the Lord in His kingdom? Her desire was for her sons to be recognized for their sterling qualities as disciples.
I am typically off on Wednesdays, and while working on the front porch of our house this past Wednesday, I was stopped in my work by a passing thunderstorm. (I seldom mind being stopped in any work—especially when it involves a paint brush!) I marveled at the awesome power of God that is so evident in long waves of rolling thunder. When a bolt of lightning struck nearby, the resounding crash of thunder was almost painful. I said out loud, “God, You are really something, there is no One like You.” Glory, in part you see, is also affirmation of greatness.
Whatever our dreams are, whatever our ambitions are, whatever our hopes and plans for life are, God has something magnificent in mind for those He loves. God has a plan to share with us the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ through many varied and assorted avenues! What incredible affirmation and recognition God has in store for us in the Lord Jesus Christ! Interested? Would you like to know what to do, what to be, in order that the God who makes the heavens roar with thunder might share the glory of the Lord Jesus with us? Anyone interested in being affirmed and recognized and counted significant by the God of creation?
Paul wanted his Thessalonian friends to know the three things that were key in receiving this kind of commendation and praise from the God of heaven. God wants us to know them, too.
Our text today is 2 Thess 2:13-17 “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.”
This text pivots around verse 14. Perhaps you noticed that as we read. “It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So what is this glory, is it worth our efforts, and if it is, what must we give attention to in gaining it?
We’ve already given some definitions to the concept of glory. The principal word in the Old Testament for glory carries the idea of being heavy, important, or awesome. In the New Testament, glory carries the added element of what someone thinks, or what something seems. When the Lord Jesus asked in the Garden of Gethsemane “Whom do you seek?”, the soldiers and priests said, “Jesus, the Nazarene.” When Jesus replied, “I am He,” the text tells us that they all drew back and fell to the ground. (John 18:6) What happened? When Jesus used the name of God, “I AM”, a burst of glory bowled everyone over.
When the shepherds heard the angels’ announcement of the birth of the Lord Jesus, they were dazzled with unbelievable splendor; the glory of the Lord shone around them.
So, when something or someone is awesome, and it or he is perceived to be awesome, that thing or that person has glory. Of course, the Lord Jesus has great glory. We know from the Scriptures that a day is coming when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord of all, interestingly, to the glory of God the Father.
The disciples with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration saw the glory of Jesus, according to Luke 9. “Some eight days after these sayings, He took along Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while He was praying, the appearance of His face became different, and His clothing became white and gleaming. (In Mark’s Gospel, His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.) And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep; but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.”
Now if gaining the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ means to us that we have shining faces and gleaming white clothes, maybe that’s not much of a goal to share in. It is so much more than that! Think Biblically with me for a moment. In Exodus 34, Moses’ face shone whenever he spoke to God. He had a glorious appearance when he came away from his encounters with God. Sharing in Christ’s glory suggests a radiance in appearance. We have all known and experienced the difference between a radiant face and a downcast one. And those faces are reflections of conditions in the heart. God intends that we gain a share in the glory of the Lord Jesus, that we have hearts at peace and hearts confidently trusting Him.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 3:17-18 about being transformed from glory to glory. He had in mind the gaining of Christ’s glory, a step-by-step process of being changed into the image of Christ. The things that frustrate us, the things that dominate us, the things that control us gradually lose their strength over us. We become more and more people of virtue and character and good reputation. We evidence more and more our relationship to the Lord by getting up in the cold of night to go and make an apology to someone we offended, or took advantage of, or cheated in some way. We become less and less individuals known for our lies and more and more people willing to pay the price to tell the truth.
There are many more issues related to the glory of Christ that we could discuss if we had the time, more than how a heart is transparent through a face and more than a process of transformation, but for now, I hope we all can see that obtaining a part in the glory of the Lord Jesus is indeed a worthwhile goal and objective. Only those who are content with their present slavery, only those who don’t care about the development of their character, only those who like their anxiety, their worries, and their sleepless nights, only these will have no interest in the following steps outlined by Paul.
The first step to gaining a share in the glory of Christ is being saved. We talked last week about what it means to be saved, how being saved is a good, solid Biblical concept, and now we see it again here in our text. Paul gives thanks to God in verse 13 “because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.”
Do you see how salvation happens? God chooses and we trust. The Holy Spirit begins the wooing activity of God. He begins to draw us apart; that’s what that big word, sanctification, means. The Holy Spirit of God tugs and nudges and convicts and challenges us toward something better than we’ve known so far. Then we reach a point where we decide to trust in that truth of the Gospel that has grown clearer and clearer. Paul says in verse 14, “It was for this He called you through our gospel…” The Gospel is that body of truth that we put our faith in. Faith is just another word for trust.
We come to understand our situation in sin before a holy God; we come to understand that God Himself made provision for our sin problem by allowing His Son to be crucified on the cross to pay our sin’s penalty; we come to understand that we need to accept that payment so we don’t have to pay ourselves by spending eternity in a place of punishment and torment.
In order to gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must begin by being saved. Some of here today are considering taking this first step. Our life just isn’t what we see others experiencing; we can’t seem to step away from our bad habits and character flaws; the attractions and allures of the world just don't provide long term satisfaction. That tugging by the Holy Spirit just won’t go away. Today would be a good day to say, “I’m ready to trust You, God.” “I’d like to get on the road to glory.”
The second step is endurance. Paul says in verse 15, “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” ‘Stand firm’ and ‘hold fast’ amount to endurance. ‘Hold fast’ conveys the picture of gripping something tightly with the hand. We remember that these new believers were suffering; they were under the pressures of afflictions and persecutions. Some were wavering under the false notions that the day of the Lord had come and gone without them. They were the ‘shaken’ and the ‘disturbed’ of verse 2. They had been shocked and that shock had turned into a state of jumpiness, worry, and constant fretting. Paul exhorts them to hold tightly to the truths, the traditions, they had been taught.
I suppose all of us have heard of Kevlar. It is the material that is 5 times stronger than steel (ounce for ounce) and lighter than fiberglass. It is used for bullet-proof vests that police officers wear, and it has saved the lives of more than 2000 officers since its discovery. More than half of the ships in the U.S. Navy have Kevlar mooring lines because they are light enough for a sailor to lift and yet strong enough to hold a ship in its place at the dock. People who regularly use a chain saw can buy chaps made from Kevlar to protect their legs.
Kevlar was the discovery of a chemist by the name of Stephanie Kwolek. When she came up with a cloudy chemical solution that she thought would be the foundation for the next generation of polymer fibers, her colleagues told her that cloudy solutions could not possibly generate polymer fibers. All chemists know that cloudiness in a solution usually indicates the presence of solid particles. Solid particles only clog up the holes in the spinneret which the solution has to go through in order to be made into fibers.
But Kwolek had a personality with a steely resolve as strong as Kevlar. She knew she had done her work right. She filtered her solution through the finest of filters and it was still cloudy. There just could not be particles in it. It was finally discovered that she had invented the world’s first synthetic liquid crystals. The cloudiness in the solution was due to light diffraction off of the crystals. When the solution was put through the spinneret, the crystals formed fibers that were strong, stiff, and when woven together became Kevlar.
Stephanie Kwolek knew what Paul meant when he said to stand firm and hold fast. Her endurance brought her sweet glory.
These Thessalonian believers were in need of endurance. And some of us are too. No one, friends, has ever obtained a place on the victor’s stand of glory without endurance. It just doesn’t happen. Job is a towering example of glory that is produced by endurance. Joseph is a shining model of the glory that perseverance produces. Jesus, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and sat down in glory at the right hand of the throne of God.
God wanted these new believers to stand firm and hold fast to the things they had been taught. And the same applies to us. We are to tightly grip the truth of the Gospel. We are to believe everyday that all things work together for good to those who love God. We are to never doubt that God is good. We are to be convinced every hour that all afflictions are producing an eternal weight of glory for those of us who know God. We are to regularly draw upon the truth that the Holy Spirit is our indwelling comforter and guide. We are to daily, expectantly look for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to always be alert to our enemy who, as a roaring lion, seeks to devour us.
It is these kinds of things we have been taught; these are our traditions that we want to grasp tightly and stand tall upon.
There’s a third step to glory; that is an engaged heart. Paul prays for his friends in verses 16 and 17 that “ … our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father…(will) comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.” Gaining the glory of the Lord Jesus is finally a matter of engaging our hearts in good work and good words. In the strength that God provides by His grace, we are to be saying good things and be doing good deeds.
Now as we’ve said before, in a context of suffering and pain, it is not easy to be others’ oriented. It is far easier to be crabby than it is to be comforting. It is a much bigger temptation to withdraw in pain than it is to be engaged in doing something for someone else. We understand this reality. Paul did, too. That’s why verse 16 and 17a precede the expectation of good work and good words. Let’s read them again: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts……..in every good work and word.”
It is God Who makes it possible for us to function in goodness when we find it impossible to do so. There is great glory to be gained when, at the outer boundaries of our strength, we tap into His resources and engage our hearts in good deeds and good words.
(Conclusion) So, friends, what do we say at the end of a text like this? We say, God is so great! He has a plan to share the glory of His dear Son with us! He has a plan to affirm us, to bring us recognition, to give us a reputation of virtue and character. He plans to bring us honor and esteem and glory! He has made a plan to bring us purpose and significance and meaning. He makes it possible for us to be saved! He provides the resources for us to engage our hearts and to keep on engaging them with endurance and perseverance!
And in the end, we get to stand before all the universe in the light and glory, in the acclaim and honor that by rights ought to be exclusively the domain of the Lord Jesus. Stand firm, friends; be engaged. One day, it will be worth it all. The reward for endurance, salvation’s glory, is reachable, it’s expected, and it is worth it. Don’t give up!
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
The man of sin
II Thessalonians 2
Introduction: According to James Bradley in his book, Flags of our Fathers, Iwo Jima is just “a trivial scab barely cresting the infinite Pacific…” The Japanese words, Iwo Jima, mean ‘sulfur island’, for the 8 square miles of this island are “a dry wasteland of black volcanic ash that stinks of sulfur.”
One of the most famous pictures in American history was taken on Iwo Jima, on February 23, 1945, by an AP photographer named Joe Rosenthal. This immortal photograph is of six men, 5 Marines and a Navy Corpsman, raising the American flag on the top of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak.
In his book, Bradley tells the stories of the lives of these six American heroes, and for our purposes this morning, I want to draw your attention to the man on the far right. He is a bit separate from his friends, his right knee is near his shoulder, and he is jamming the base of the flag pole into the hard Suribachi soil.
For two years after this photograph was taken, this man was incorrectly identified. Oh, he knew who he was; his fellow Marines knew who he was; and of course, his mother, Belle, knew that this young man was her son. Though Belle was convinced that this famous Marine, with his back to the camera, was her son, no one else believed her, not her husband (the boy’s father), not her family, not her neighbors. To this day we would not know the real identity of Harlon Block if “a certain stranger had not walked into the family cotton field near Weslaco, Texas, and declared that he had seen this son Harlon put that pole in the ground.”
When we come today in our study of 2 Thessalonians to chapter 2, we are introduced to an unidentified man. Unlike the Texan Harlon Block, this man is still unidentified, though almost 2000 years have passed since Paul first made reference to him.
We want today to understand as much as we can about this figure of history-to-come, and we want to draw some lessons that will have application to life for us today.
Our text is 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. In the NASV, it reads like this: “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?
And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”
In a nutshell, this is what the text seems to be saying to the Thessalonians: Contrary to what you have heard, the day of the Lord has NOT come. Don’t believe the false reports you have heard that it has. There are several things that have to take place before the coming of that day. According to verse three, there is a coming period in time when there will be a great apostasy, an aggressive, stubborn, climactic revolt against God Himself by most of mankind. After this time-frame has begun, the Anti-Christ has to be revealed before that day of the Lord can come.
This Anti-Christ is known in different parts of the Scriptures as the man of sin, the man of lawlessness (vs.3), the son of destruction (vs.3), the lawless one (vs.8). He has to be identified; he has to be revealed before the Lord returns. His identity will be known.
But before this man of lawlessness can begin to function, the restrainer has to be removed (vs. 7). There is a force in place that suppresses the evil outworking of this man’s purposes. That constrainer must be moved out of the way before the evil one can do his thing.
Paul’s point is that since the restrainer has not yet been removed (vs. 7), these Thessalonians can be certain that the day of the Lord has not yet begun, regardless of what the false teachers were saying.
If we were to lay out a chart on a time line of the Lord’s coming again, we would see first the coming of apostasy. Sometime after the beginning of this period of world-wide rebellion against God by men and women all over the world, the restrainer would be withdrawn from the world. After the restrainer is removed, the Anti-Christ would be revealed. He will have some time to hold sway over the world before the Lord Jesus returns to slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by the appearance of His coming.
If the Thessalonians just considered this information, they would not have to be worried about missing the return of the Lord.
For us today, looking from our vantage point, we could add another element to the chart/time line. Verse 4 makes it clear that there must be a temple rebuilt in Jerusalem before the anti-christ can be revealed, because (vs.4) “…he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” Currently there is no temple in Jerusalem, though we would not be surprised if construction on one began at any time.
Now before we move to some lessons for us by way of application, we ought to consider a few of the details that Paul has included in this part of our text. By understanding a few other facts, we can be better prepared ourselves for that coming day of glory and judgement.
In verse three, Paul makes reference to ‘the apostasy’. Notice the definite article ‘the’ being used here. Paul has reference to a special time of apostasy that is coming. ‘Apostasy’, as used by Paul here, suggests more than just a time frame of unbelief. This term implies revolt. Men and women of this apostasy will be actively, aggressively, violently opposed to God and His kingdom. In I Timothy 4 and 2 Timothy 3 and 4, Paul describes what this revolt against God looks like.
He says things like people falling away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, people having their consciences seared as if with branding irons. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. In this time of ‘the apostasy’, people will turn their ears away from truth, preferring instead myths.
We see evidence of these kinds of things all about us. When these kinds of things become more the norm, and when the temple begins to be rebuilt, we will be very, very close to hearing the trumpet of the Lord and being snatched away to the heavens. ‘The apostasy’ must come in with a vengeance before that important day of the Lord.
Another key term in Paul’s revelation is ‘the restrainer’. Paul says in verse 6 that these Thessalonians know who he is. It would have been nice if he had told us! The participle in verse 6 is a neuter participle with a neuter article. The one who restrains in verse 7 is a masculine participle with a masculine article. (See how important it is to be good students of English?)
It seems to me most logical to identify the restrainer as the Holy Spirit of God. Only God is powerful enough to constrain the devil and his evil influence and schemes. The use of the neuter may have been chosen because the Greek word for Spirit is in the neuter case. The use of the masculine in verse 7 points to the Spirit being a person, as we also see in John’s Gospel and in Paul’s Ephesian letter. (John 15:26, 16:13-14, Eph. 1:13-14)
So if this is true, then after ‘the apostasy’ begins, the restrainer will be withdrawn, i.e., the church will be raptured and the Holy Spirit will leave this evil world with the departing church. He has been resident in the church, in the bodies of believers, and when the church goes, the resident Holy Spirit goes with it. Until the church is called to heaven, evil cannot ultimately prevail, for the Lord Jesus had said in Matthew 16, “the gates of hell will not overpower the church.”
Notice, thirdly, ‘the man of lawlessness’. This title reveals his basic character as one who is absolutely opposed to God. His being called ‘the man of sin’ fully supports this characterization. If we are in the last days these days, then this man is probably alive and thriving somewhere in our world today. In the series by Tim LeHaye, Left Behind, we see a very plausible, though fictitious, account of the coming Anti-Christ. His revelation or his being revealed comes when he makes a covenant with the nation of Israel as described by Daniel in 9:27. With that revealing, the great tribulation begins.
Paul clarifies again for us and his Thessalonian friends the power of this man of sin. In verses 9 and 10, he is seen to have great power, able to perform counterfeit miracles, and to do false wonders. ‘False wonders’ is literally ‘wonders of lying’, or as Charles Ryrie interprets, “things which cannot be explained.”
This great evil power will promote deceit throughout the world. With the church gone, with no world-wide defender of the truth, people everywhere will perish! See how verse 10 says it? “…and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”
There is a final element to this man, and Paul tells us of his judgment. We see in verse 8 that he is doomed already. The breath of the Lord Jesus at His return will be like a hurricane, sweeping away this man of sin from his position of power and arrogance. It is like this man of sin is standing before a furnace when the door is opened. He is blown away. Paul also says that the brightness of the coming of the Lord Jesus brings this man to an end, or renders him inoperable, or sets him on the sidelines. His great power will fail him in the face of the return of the Lord Jesus.
There is one last detail we need to understand. That is the group of people who will perish because they do not know the truth. In verses 10-12 we see that these people will perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. Paul also says that God is their judge. It is God Who sends upon these people a deluding influence so that they believe what is false. His judgment is certain because they took pleasure in wickedness and did not believe the truth.
Interestingly, the phrase, ‘those who perish’ is a present tense participle, meaning they are already perishing even though they are still alive. To take pleasure in wickedness is a silent poison to the soul; those being poisoned don’t even know it is happening to them. They think they are really alive; in fact they are perishing. A day is coming when it will be impossible to be saved! God has no more patience, and there is no way to escape His judgment.
Now, let’s consider some lessons that we can take home out of a passage primarily concerned with future things.
One, A life of victory requires a good memory. When Paul writes in verse five his question, “Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?”, he is really saying, “Don’t you remember that I repeatedly told you these things?”
Friends, one of the reasons Art and I work so hard to present truth to you each week in audio AND video form is so that we can better remember the truth we’re exposed to. Take notes on the Sermon Supplement; make notes in the margin of your Bible; tell someone else during the week what you learned on Sunday: in the retelling is strengthened memory.
And better than all these is the practice of the truth. What we put into practice we don’t forget. Who among us this week sought to think on Jesus one second out of each minute, like Frank Laubach in the sermon from last week? Those of us who did have more resolve for goodness now than we had last week. A life of victory requires a good memory.
Two, Truth has always been designed to keep us safe and stable. Paul did not want his friends shaken or disturbed, as he relates in verse 2. The phrase ‘shaken from your composure’ carries the image of a ship being tossed by the sudden appearance of a tidal wave. And the term ‘disturbed’ portrays a continuing state of agitation resulting from the shock of the previous ‘shaking’. The picture’s rather grim, isn’t it. Falsehood, lies, and rumors that are embraced have a way of unsettling us. They first shock us, then they keep us agitated so there’s no rest for our souls, no peace for our hearts, no quiet for our spirits.
Friends, God never intended life to be like this for any of His children. The Lord Jesus had said in John 8:31-32: “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” One dimension of the freedom Jesus had in mind was the freedom from being shaken from our composure and being disturbed by falsehood. Jesus would go on to say in John 14:6, “I am… the truth.”
Let’s make it our goal to remember the truth we’ve been taught and to enjoy the protection, the buffering, the refuge that it provides.
Three, Today is the day to be saved, before it’s too late. The day is coming, and it could be very soon, when God decides that salvation’s offer is to be withdrawn. Then it will be too late to be saved. ‘Being saved’ is a good Biblical term, regardless of whether our church background is Presbyterian, Methodist, Wesleyan, Catholic, or Baptist. We see it here in our text in verses 10-12. To be saved means to be delivered from the power of sin, and it means to be delivered from the wrath of God coming upon this world of sin. Verse 12 reminds us that judgment is coming, but those who have received the truth will be saved from that judgment. Those who have not face unspeakable horrors. Those who are not saved will encounter the most terrible of holocausts, like nothing the world has ever seen before.
Wouldn’t today be a good day to acknowledge our sin, to accept God’s provision for our sin, the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, and to be saved? Being saved in a Biblical sense is as simple as that. Forgiveness for our sin from God is still available today; it may not be available tomorrow.
(Conclusion) Let’s give attention to truth. It’s the greatest life jacket known to man. And it will deliver us from that coming day of the wrath of God.
Harlon Block, from the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, died on the slopes of Iwo Jima six days after the famous picture was taken. He was buried in the 5th Marine Division cemetery there on the island, Plot 4, Row 6, Grave 912. There is an inscription just outside that majestic burial ground that says this:
When you go home
Tell them for us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today
Let’s not waste our today, bought for us with the lives of others, by being careless with the truth, by being shaken and disturbed, or by remaining separated from God and unsaved.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Introduction: According to James Bradley in his book, Flags of our Fathers, Iwo Jima is just “a trivial scab barely cresting the infinite Pacific…” The Japanese words, Iwo Jima, mean ‘sulfur island’, for the 8 square miles of this island are “a dry wasteland of black volcanic ash that stinks of sulfur.”
One of the most famous pictures in American history was taken on Iwo Jima, on February 23, 1945, by an AP photographer named Joe Rosenthal. This immortal photograph is of six men, 5 Marines and a Navy Corpsman, raising the American flag on the top of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak.
In his book, Bradley tells the stories of the lives of these six American heroes, and for our purposes this morning, I want to draw your attention to the man on the far right. He is a bit separate from his friends, his right knee is near his shoulder, and he is jamming the base of the flag pole into the hard Suribachi soil.
For two years after this photograph was taken, this man was incorrectly identified. Oh, he knew who he was; his fellow Marines knew who he was; and of course, his mother, Belle, knew that this young man was her son. Though Belle was convinced that this famous Marine, with his back to the camera, was her son, no one else believed her, not her husband (the boy’s father), not her family, not her neighbors. To this day we would not know the real identity of Harlon Block if “a certain stranger had not walked into the family cotton field near Weslaco, Texas, and declared that he had seen this son Harlon put that pole in the ground.”
When we come today in our study of 2 Thessalonians to chapter 2, we are introduced to an unidentified man. Unlike the Texan Harlon Block, this man is still unidentified, though almost 2000 years have passed since Paul first made reference to him.
We want today to understand as much as we can about this figure of history-to-come, and we want to draw some lessons that will have application to life for us today.
Our text is 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. In the NASV, it reads like this: “Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?
And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”
In a nutshell, this is what the text seems to be saying to the Thessalonians: Contrary to what you have heard, the day of the Lord has NOT come. Don’t believe the false reports you have heard that it has. There are several things that have to take place before the coming of that day. According to verse three, there is a coming period in time when there will be a great apostasy, an aggressive, stubborn, climactic revolt against God Himself by most of mankind. After this time-frame has begun, the Anti-Christ has to be revealed before that day of the Lord can come.
This Anti-Christ is known in different parts of the Scriptures as the man of sin, the man of lawlessness (vs.3), the son of destruction (vs.3), the lawless one (vs.8). He has to be identified; he has to be revealed before the Lord returns. His identity will be known.
But before this man of lawlessness can begin to function, the restrainer has to be removed (vs. 7). There is a force in place that suppresses the evil outworking of this man’s purposes. That constrainer must be moved out of the way before the evil one can do his thing.
Paul’s point is that since the restrainer has not yet been removed (vs. 7), these Thessalonians can be certain that the day of the Lord has not yet begun, regardless of what the false teachers were saying.
If we were to lay out a chart on a time line of the Lord’s coming again, we would see first the coming of apostasy. Sometime after the beginning of this period of world-wide rebellion against God by men and women all over the world, the restrainer would be withdrawn from the world. After the restrainer is removed, the Anti-Christ would be revealed. He will have some time to hold sway over the world before the Lord Jesus returns to slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by the appearance of His coming.
If the Thessalonians just considered this information, they would not have to be worried about missing the return of the Lord.
For us today, looking from our vantage point, we could add another element to the chart/time line. Verse 4 makes it clear that there must be a temple rebuilt in Jerusalem before the anti-christ can be revealed, because (vs.4) “…he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.” Currently there is no temple in Jerusalem, though we would not be surprised if construction on one began at any time.
Now before we move to some lessons for us by way of application, we ought to consider a few of the details that Paul has included in this part of our text. By understanding a few other facts, we can be better prepared ourselves for that coming day of glory and judgement.
In verse three, Paul makes reference to ‘the apostasy’. Notice the definite article ‘the’ being used here. Paul has reference to a special time of apostasy that is coming. ‘Apostasy’, as used by Paul here, suggests more than just a time frame of unbelief. This term implies revolt. Men and women of this apostasy will be actively, aggressively, violently opposed to God and His kingdom. In I Timothy 4 and 2 Timothy 3 and 4, Paul describes what this revolt against God looks like.
He says things like people falling away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, people having their consciences seared as if with branding irons. Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. In this time of ‘the apostasy’, people will turn their ears away from truth, preferring instead myths.
We see evidence of these kinds of things all about us. When these kinds of things become more the norm, and when the temple begins to be rebuilt, we will be very, very close to hearing the trumpet of the Lord and being snatched away to the heavens. ‘The apostasy’ must come in with a vengeance before that important day of the Lord.
Another key term in Paul’s revelation is ‘the restrainer’. Paul says in verse 6 that these Thessalonians know who he is. It would have been nice if he had told us! The participle in verse 6 is a neuter participle with a neuter article. The one who restrains in verse 7 is a masculine participle with a masculine article. (See how important it is to be good students of English?)
It seems to me most logical to identify the restrainer as the Holy Spirit of God. Only God is powerful enough to constrain the devil and his evil influence and schemes. The use of the neuter may have been chosen because the Greek word for Spirit is in the neuter case. The use of the masculine in verse 7 points to the Spirit being a person, as we also see in John’s Gospel and in Paul’s Ephesian letter. (John 15:26, 16:13-14, Eph. 1:13-14)
So if this is true, then after ‘the apostasy’ begins, the restrainer will be withdrawn, i.e., the church will be raptured and the Holy Spirit will leave this evil world with the departing church. He has been resident in the church, in the bodies of believers, and when the church goes, the resident Holy Spirit goes with it. Until the church is called to heaven, evil cannot ultimately prevail, for the Lord Jesus had said in Matthew 16, “the gates of hell will not overpower the church.”
Notice, thirdly, ‘the man of lawlessness’. This title reveals his basic character as one who is absolutely opposed to God. His being called ‘the man of sin’ fully supports this characterization. If we are in the last days these days, then this man is probably alive and thriving somewhere in our world today. In the series by Tim LeHaye, Left Behind, we see a very plausible, though fictitious, account of the coming Anti-Christ. His revelation or his being revealed comes when he makes a covenant with the nation of Israel as described by Daniel in 9:27. With that revealing, the great tribulation begins.
Paul clarifies again for us and his Thessalonian friends the power of this man of sin. In verses 9 and 10, he is seen to have great power, able to perform counterfeit miracles, and to do false wonders. ‘False wonders’ is literally ‘wonders of lying’, or as Charles Ryrie interprets, “things which cannot be explained.”
This great evil power will promote deceit throughout the world. With the church gone, with no world-wide defender of the truth, people everywhere will perish! See how verse 10 says it? “…and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”
There is a final element to this man, and Paul tells us of his judgment. We see in verse 8 that he is doomed already. The breath of the Lord Jesus at His return will be like a hurricane, sweeping away this man of sin from his position of power and arrogance. It is like this man of sin is standing before a furnace when the door is opened. He is blown away. Paul also says that the brightness of the coming of the Lord Jesus brings this man to an end, or renders him inoperable, or sets him on the sidelines. His great power will fail him in the face of the return of the Lord Jesus.
There is one last detail we need to understand. That is the group of people who will perish because they do not know the truth. In verses 10-12 we see that these people will perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. Paul also says that God is their judge. It is God Who sends upon these people a deluding influence so that they believe what is false. His judgment is certain because they took pleasure in wickedness and did not believe the truth.
Interestingly, the phrase, ‘those who perish’ is a present tense participle, meaning they are already perishing even though they are still alive. To take pleasure in wickedness is a silent poison to the soul; those being poisoned don’t even know it is happening to them. They think they are really alive; in fact they are perishing. A day is coming when it will be impossible to be saved! God has no more patience, and there is no way to escape His judgment.
Now, let’s consider some lessons that we can take home out of a passage primarily concerned with future things.
One, A life of victory requires a good memory. When Paul writes in verse five his question, “Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?”, he is really saying, “Don’t you remember that I repeatedly told you these things?”
Friends, one of the reasons Art and I work so hard to present truth to you each week in audio AND video form is so that we can better remember the truth we’re exposed to. Take notes on the Sermon Supplement; make notes in the margin of your Bible; tell someone else during the week what you learned on Sunday: in the retelling is strengthened memory.
And better than all these is the practice of the truth. What we put into practice we don’t forget. Who among us this week sought to think on Jesus one second out of each minute, like Frank Laubach in the sermon from last week? Those of us who did have more resolve for goodness now than we had last week. A life of victory requires a good memory.
Two, Truth has always been designed to keep us safe and stable. Paul did not want his friends shaken or disturbed, as he relates in verse 2. The phrase ‘shaken from your composure’ carries the image of a ship being tossed by the sudden appearance of a tidal wave. And the term ‘disturbed’ portrays a continuing state of agitation resulting from the shock of the previous ‘shaking’. The picture’s rather grim, isn’t it. Falsehood, lies, and rumors that are embraced have a way of unsettling us. They first shock us, then they keep us agitated so there’s no rest for our souls, no peace for our hearts, no quiet for our spirits.
Friends, God never intended life to be like this for any of His children. The Lord Jesus had said in John 8:31-32: “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” One dimension of the freedom Jesus had in mind was the freedom from being shaken from our composure and being disturbed by falsehood. Jesus would go on to say in John 14:6, “I am… the truth.”
Let’s make it our goal to remember the truth we’ve been taught and to enjoy the protection, the buffering, the refuge that it provides.
Three, Today is the day to be saved, before it’s too late. The day is coming, and it could be very soon, when God decides that salvation’s offer is to be withdrawn. Then it will be too late to be saved. ‘Being saved’ is a good Biblical term, regardless of whether our church background is Presbyterian, Methodist, Wesleyan, Catholic, or Baptist. We see it here in our text in verses 10-12. To be saved means to be delivered from the power of sin, and it means to be delivered from the wrath of God coming upon this world of sin. Verse 12 reminds us that judgment is coming, but those who have received the truth will be saved from that judgment. Those who have not face unspeakable horrors. Those who are not saved will encounter the most terrible of holocausts, like nothing the world has ever seen before.
Wouldn’t today be a good day to acknowledge our sin, to accept God’s provision for our sin, the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, and to be saved? Being saved in a Biblical sense is as simple as that. Forgiveness for our sin from God is still available today; it may not be available tomorrow.
(Conclusion) Let’s give attention to truth. It’s the greatest life jacket known to man. And it will deliver us from that coming day of the wrath of God.
Harlon Block, from the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, died on the slopes of Iwo Jima six days after the famous picture was taken. He was buried in the 5th Marine Division cemetery there on the island, Plot 4, Row 6, Grave 912. There is an inscription just outside that majestic burial ground that says this:
When you go home
Tell them for us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today
Let’s not waste our today, bought for us with the lives of others, by being careless with the truth, by being shaken and disturbed, or by remaining separated from God and unsaved.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Prayer: Bringing God's will to pass
II Thessalonians 1
Introduction: In his small Bible Study guide on 2 Thessalonians, Chuck Swindoll quotes the following words from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. The king is King Arthur, and these are some of his last words as he lies on his deathbed. “Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
If more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of… and if men know God… then we ought to lift hands of prayer for both ourselves and those who call us friend.
When we come to the last two verses of 2 Thessalonians 1, we find Paul very much believing these concepts attributed by Tennyson to King Arthur on his deathbed. Before we look at Paul’s very short prayer and see how his beliefs correspond to King Arthur’s, we have to ask ourselves a question. “Do we believe that more comes about by prayer than most of the world dreams of?” How much do we, who know God, lift hands in prayer for both ourselves and those who call us friend? If we could take the spiritual temperature of our prayer life today, what would the thermometer read? What could we testify of ‘dreams come true’ because God answered our prayer?
I’m convinced there are many among us today who pray faithfully, who could relate many experiences of working with God to bring His will to pass here on Earth. I’m sure there are a good number among us who often get counsel from the heavenly Father by means of prayer for issues we must act upon.
But who among us today would say, “Don’t bother me with another sermon about prayer! I know all I need to know; I’m highly motivated every day to pray; I’m as disciplined as can be in this spiritual exercise.”?
Though this prayer of Paul’s is very brief, it is loaded with good things for us to understand, to imitate, and to incorporate into the way we pray. In fact, I’m amazed at all that Paul said in only two verses! As we read 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, notice how easy it would be for us, for the next 30 days, to pray this prayer of Paul’s for ourselves and for those who call us friend.
2 Thess 1:11-12 – “To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
As we examine what Paul is saying, we find him making three requests of God on behalf of his friends in Thessalonica. We could make the same requests of God for ourselves and our friends every day, and we could be assured that God would be pleased with what we are asking.
Paul’s three requests are these: one, that God would count these friends worthy of their calling; two, that God would fulfill their every desire for goodness; and three, that God would fulfill their work of faith with power.
As we think about what Paul is initially petitioning God for, and as we seek to understand what he means, it’s good for us to remember the circumstances that his friends have been experiencing. These believers were in the midst of afflictions and persecutions. Life was not much fun at this point, full of pain and suffering. These Christians probably felt a lot like the church member being investigated by the IRS. An agent of the IRS called the pastor of the church and inquired whether he knew a Herman Coffman.
“Yes, I do.”
“Is he a member of your church?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Did he give a gift of $10,000?”
“He will!”
Paul had affirmed these new converts and had bragged on them everywhere he went. He had just explained to them some of the reasons, some of the good reasons for pain and suffering in the life of a follower of Christ. Now he turns to prayer for them.
Notice in the first part of his prayer in verse 11, Paul prays that God would count them worthy of their calling. These Thessalonian believers have been called into the kingdom of God. They have been ushered into that realm where God rules, where they have a part of the life of God and He has a part of theirs. They have been given the status of children of God. They have been ushered out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Their sins have been washed away. They have been made partakers of eternal life.
They have been given a relationship with the Creator of the universe. They have been assigned a guardian angel to minister to them and to protect them. They have been baptized into the Body of Christ. They have been commissioned to carry the Gospel to the far corners of the world. They have been commanded to love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their strength and with all their soul, AND to love their neighbors as themselves. They have been called to the standards of Micah 6:8. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Paul prays that these Thessalonians will be counted by God as worthy of this high calling. I’m reminded of the life-story of the swimmer, Gertrude Ederle. She is 93 this year and now lives in a nursing home in Wyckoff, New Jersey. As a twenty year old in 1926, Gertrude swam the English Channel. In only her second attempt, she beat the men’s record by 2 hours, using a crawl stroke instead of the breaststroke, which was the common stroke of her day. And her record would stand for 24 years. Experts would later calculate that Gertrude Ederle had actually swum 35 miles in crossing the 21 mile wide channel because of the rough waters that 14 hour day on August 6, 1926. At one point in the crossing, both her father and her coach pleaded with her to come out of the water. She shouted, “No, No.” She had already decided she would finish the swim or drown trying.
Amazingly, this channel-crosser had fallen into a pond as an eight-year-old while visiting her grandmother in Germany and had to be rescued. Though terrified by the accident, she decided she’d better learn how to swim. And learn she did.
Gertrude Ederle felt like she had a calling, a high calling, the same kind of calling climbers feel when they contemplate Mount Everest. She set out to become worthy of that call. And she succeeded.
There is a certain high calling for pastors, policemen, and presidents, and that calling carries with it the expectation of certain standards of conduct and behavior and ethics and morality. The good pastor, the respected policeman, the worthy president measures up, in his behavior, to his calling.
Paul is praying for his Thessalonian friends, that their lives would reflect the standards of God’s call upon their lives.
We, like the Thessalonians, need faithful friends who will pray that we will be counted by God as worthy of what He has called us to. God has called each one of us to be light in this world of increasing darkness, to be salt in the context of growing corruption, to be kind in the face of rejection, to be merciful to failures, to be gracious to the stubborn, to be loving to the ugly, to champion justice for the downtrodden, to exude humility in the face of praise, to constrain anger in a setting of misunderstanding, to show hospitality when there is need, etc., etc., etc.
And friends, let’s not forget that this kind of conduct, conduct worthy of the call of God upon our lives, is often required of us in difficult circumstances. It is one thing to be a patient person when all on the home front is cool, all at work is satisfying, and life is good. It’s quite another thing when nothing in any part of life is clicking. Nothing rips our masks of piety off quite so quickly as pain. Nothing spotlights the condition of our souls quite so quickly as suffering. Nothing punctures the balloon of our image quite so quickly as affliction. Who we are and what we are is never so loudly broadcast as when we hurt.
Isn’t it interesting that when Paul begins to pray for these friends, he doesn’t pray for release from suffering; he doesn’t ask God to remove those responsible for the affliction; he doesn’t petition God to provide green pastures and quiet waters. What he does ask is that God would enable them to endure their pain with the kind of class and character that reflects positively on His power and grace.
Friends, let’s pray for one another. Let’s ask God to enable us to live in such a way that our claims to know God have merit in the eyes of those who see our behavior, especially in troubled waters.
Paul’s second request of God on behalf of these new believers is that God would fulfill their every desire for goodness. The term for “goodness” here in the Scriptures is always human goodness, and the term is a relative of the word “generosity”. And the word “desire” could also be the term “resolve”. Another translation, then, of Paul’s prayer is that God would fulfill ‘their every resolve proceeding from generosity.’
Paul recognizes that suffering can make Christians hard-hearted. He knows the tendency that pain fosters towards anger, bitterness, and stinginess. He knows we feel less open-handed, less open-hearted when pain and affliction overwhelm us. And we know it too. Who wants to think of someone else when our need for comfort is so great? Who has the energy to focus on being generous to someone else when our suffering is screaming full blast in our souls?
That’s why Paul is praying! He knew it was important to pray in this specific way that these believers would emerge from their trials having a reputation for goodness and generosity. He knew it was critical that these Thessalonians have a clear resolve to do good and that that resolve would bear fruit. Only God could provide that kind of energy! Only God could fulfill that resolve!
I read this week partial stories of three men of resolve. We are all familiar with Winston Churchill’s statement in 1940: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we will never surrender.” That is resolve.
I was also introduced to William Harvey this week. He was a physician, born in England in 1578, and through his resolve, he introduced to the medical community the bulletproof theory that the heart was a pump that pushed the blood through a circulatory system in the body. Up until then, it was generally thought that the body had two kinds of blood pushed through the body by the constant twitching of arteries. The heart was believed to be a device that heated the body and filtered the blood.
One of Harvey’s teachers who impressed him a great deal was the great astronomer, Galileo Galilei. Galileo always urged his students “to continue studying science by experimenting, measuring, and examining things for themselves, rather than believing blindly what others had told them.” William Harvey’s resolve to explore further than his collogues became the foundation for blood transfusions, open-heart surgery, and artificial hearts. That is another kind of resolve for goodness.
Perhaps the most fascinating example of resolve for goodness comes out of the experience of Frank Laubach Mr. Laubach rose from a lonely missionary assignment in the Philippines to become a Christian world statesman. He founded the World Literacy Crusade and exerted quite a great influence upon United States foreign policy after World War Two, though he never had any political appointment to any State Department post.
The fulfillment of Frank Laubach’s ‘resolve for goodness’ began with a process that started in January of 1930. In that month, he began to cultivate the habit of turning his mind to Christ for one second out of every minute. After four weeks of this practice, this is what he reported: “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me, for I never felt it this way before. I need something, and turn round to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me.”
Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy, says that Laubach “always knew that his brilliant ideas and incredible energy and effectiveness derived from his practice of constant, conscious interface with God.”
Does anyone doubt that someone was praying for this missionary, that God would fulfill his every resolve, his every desire for goodness and generosity? It is patently clear that that is exactly what God was doing in his life!
Friends, this would be a good prayer to lay at the throne of God on behalf of our friends. We ought to ask God to give us and our friends resolve for goodness. We are well aware that ‘desire’ is abundant everywhere in our day; ‘resolve’ is much harder to find in our day of fast food and instant gratification. So, what resolve do we have that is growing our of our generosity? What would we say we are committed to in the arena of goodness with the resolve of Winston Churchill, William Harvey, or Frank Laubach? Then we need to ask God to fulfill that resolve out of His reserves of power and goodness. Let me offer a practical suggestion: in your next Bible study meeting, your next church board or committee meeting, your next small group meeting, when the leader asks for prayer requests, don’t offer a prayer request for someone who is sick. Ask those gathered with you to pray that God would fulfill your desires, your resolve for goodness and generosity. Then listen as you pray to see what things God might speak to you about resolve and goodness and generosity.
Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians was that they might be counted worthy of God’s high call of them, that He would fulfill their resolve to be generous, and thirdly, that He would fulfill their work of faith with power.
Notice that Paul speaks here of the ‘work of faith.’ Faith is supposed to be demonstrable; it is supposed to be seen with power. When Gallup surveys show that 94% of Americans believe in God and 74% of Americans claim to have made a commitment to Jesus Christ, and 34% proclaim a ‘new birth’ experience, and when these same groups reveal shocking statistics for unethical behavior, crime, mental distress and disorder, family failures, addictions, financial imbalances, etc., etc., we wonder where the “work” of faith is!
The great apostle prays for these friends because he did not want the suffering of these Thessalonians to be like a drought on a crop of good deeds. He didn’t want their efforts in faith to be blocked, stifled, choked, or short circuited by pain and affliction. His prayer is that their faith will know God’s power so that they can continue to bear fruit in the face of all their difficulties. His prayer is that all their acts of faith would be filled with the energy of God Himself. Paul’s prayer is that the charcoal of faith’s work would glow more brightly under the fanning of suffering.
This too would be a good prayer to pray in our next elder meeting, our next council meeting, our next small group study. O Lord, fulfill our work of faith with power that is obviously from You.
Let’s step back a moment and catch again a glimpse of Paul’s intent in this prayer for his friends. He doesn’t want these believers to give in to their desire for relief from their suffering before God has done His work of character development. Paul wants these new converts to be counted worthy of their high calling in Christ Jesus.
Paul also doesn’t want these new Christians to give up in their afflictions before they have a chance to see God carry them through the dark valley and out into the light of victory. God wants to see their resolve develop into a reputation for goodness and generosity that He has fulfilled.
And finally, the great leader of Gentile Christians, the one who always carried about in his own body a thorn in the flesh, prayed that his friends wouldn’t give out in bearing good fruit because they had run out of power. God would fulfill, with His power, their works of faith.
We ought always to pray that we ourselves and our friends would not give in, nor give up, nor give out in this wonderful calling we have received from our great God.
Finally, Paul tells us the great purpose in his prayer – that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you and you in Him. Paul’s desire is that these Thessalonians will be such a bright light, shining so clearly in regards to the reality of their salvation, that all who see them will see what a great Savior the Lord Jesus really is. Their character, their reputation, their strengths, their virtues bring glory to the One who is responsible for them.
It would seem that the Lord Jesus would have enough majesty and enough glory and enough splendor to stand alone above all His competitors. But God long ago decided that His Son would be glorified through us, the church. That’s a mind-boggling idea, isn’t it? God is seen to be magnificent because of our part in His plans! We indeed have a high calling; we indeed have a huge responsibility.
I want to conclude this morning with a few suggestions on how we might pray in the pattern of Paul’s prayer we see here.
Pray specifically. It is not hard to see how Paul has focused his praying on three specific issues related to his Thessalonian friends. We can do the same.
Pray situationally. How can we get in tune with what God is doing for the sake of His kingdom? What does this situation look like from the perspective of the Creator? Perhaps we ought to pray less for healing of sickness and relief from suffering and more for God’s will to be done and more for His glory to shine.
Pray sensibly. Suffering, affliction, and pain are not always to be avoided or escaped. Our prayers to be worthy of our calling are far more certain and likely to be answered than selfish desires for comfort and ease. Our prayers for resolve in being generous have a great chance of being answered. Our prayers for a faith that works with power will certainly please the Father.
When we pray in this way, we participate in bringing God’s will to pass in our world.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
Introduction: In his small Bible Study guide on 2 Thessalonians, Chuck Swindoll quotes the following words from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. The king is King Arthur, and these are some of his last words as he lies on his deathbed. “Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within the brain, if, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”
If more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of… and if men know God… then we ought to lift hands of prayer for both ourselves and those who call us friend.
When we come to the last two verses of 2 Thessalonians 1, we find Paul very much believing these concepts attributed by Tennyson to King Arthur on his deathbed. Before we look at Paul’s very short prayer and see how his beliefs correspond to King Arthur’s, we have to ask ourselves a question. “Do we believe that more comes about by prayer than most of the world dreams of?” How much do we, who know God, lift hands in prayer for both ourselves and those who call us friend? If we could take the spiritual temperature of our prayer life today, what would the thermometer read? What could we testify of ‘dreams come true’ because God answered our prayer?
I’m convinced there are many among us today who pray faithfully, who could relate many experiences of working with God to bring His will to pass here on Earth. I’m sure there are a good number among us who often get counsel from the heavenly Father by means of prayer for issues we must act upon.
But who among us today would say, “Don’t bother me with another sermon about prayer! I know all I need to know; I’m highly motivated every day to pray; I’m as disciplined as can be in this spiritual exercise.”?
Though this prayer of Paul’s is very brief, it is loaded with good things for us to understand, to imitate, and to incorporate into the way we pray. In fact, I’m amazed at all that Paul said in only two verses! As we read 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, notice how easy it would be for us, for the next 30 days, to pray this prayer of Paul’s for ourselves and for those who call us friend.
2 Thess 1:11-12 – “To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
As we examine what Paul is saying, we find him making three requests of God on behalf of his friends in Thessalonica. We could make the same requests of God for ourselves and our friends every day, and we could be assured that God would be pleased with what we are asking.
Paul’s three requests are these: one, that God would count these friends worthy of their calling; two, that God would fulfill their every desire for goodness; and three, that God would fulfill their work of faith with power.
As we think about what Paul is initially petitioning God for, and as we seek to understand what he means, it’s good for us to remember the circumstances that his friends have been experiencing. These believers were in the midst of afflictions and persecutions. Life was not much fun at this point, full of pain and suffering. These Christians probably felt a lot like the church member being investigated by the IRS. An agent of the IRS called the pastor of the church and inquired whether he knew a Herman Coffman.
“Yes, I do.”
“Is he a member of your church?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Did he give a gift of $10,000?”
“He will!”
Paul had affirmed these new converts and had bragged on them everywhere he went. He had just explained to them some of the reasons, some of the good reasons for pain and suffering in the life of a follower of Christ. Now he turns to prayer for them.
Notice in the first part of his prayer in verse 11, Paul prays that God would count them worthy of their calling. These Thessalonian believers have been called into the kingdom of God. They have been ushered into that realm where God rules, where they have a part of the life of God and He has a part of theirs. They have been given the status of children of God. They have been ushered out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Their sins have been washed away. They have been made partakers of eternal life.
They have been given a relationship with the Creator of the universe. They have been assigned a guardian angel to minister to them and to protect them. They have been baptized into the Body of Christ. They have been commissioned to carry the Gospel to the far corners of the world. They have been commanded to love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their strength and with all their soul, AND to love their neighbors as themselves. They have been called to the standards of Micah 6:8. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Paul prays that these Thessalonians will be counted by God as worthy of this high calling. I’m reminded of the life-story of the swimmer, Gertrude Ederle. She is 93 this year and now lives in a nursing home in Wyckoff, New Jersey. As a twenty year old in 1926, Gertrude swam the English Channel. In only her second attempt, she beat the men’s record by 2 hours, using a crawl stroke instead of the breaststroke, which was the common stroke of her day. And her record would stand for 24 years. Experts would later calculate that Gertrude Ederle had actually swum 35 miles in crossing the 21 mile wide channel because of the rough waters that 14 hour day on August 6, 1926. At one point in the crossing, both her father and her coach pleaded with her to come out of the water. She shouted, “No, No.” She had already decided she would finish the swim or drown trying.
Amazingly, this channel-crosser had fallen into a pond as an eight-year-old while visiting her grandmother in Germany and had to be rescued. Though terrified by the accident, she decided she’d better learn how to swim. And learn she did.
Gertrude Ederle felt like she had a calling, a high calling, the same kind of calling climbers feel when they contemplate Mount Everest. She set out to become worthy of that call. And she succeeded.
There is a certain high calling for pastors, policemen, and presidents, and that calling carries with it the expectation of certain standards of conduct and behavior and ethics and morality. The good pastor, the respected policeman, the worthy president measures up, in his behavior, to his calling.
Paul is praying for his Thessalonian friends, that their lives would reflect the standards of God’s call upon their lives.
We, like the Thessalonians, need faithful friends who will pray that we will be counted by God as worthy of what He has called us to. God has called each one of us to be light in this world of increasing darkness, to be salt in the context of growing corruption, to be kind in the face of rejection, to be merciful to failures, to be gracious to the stubborn, to be loving to the ugly, to champion justice for the downtrodden, to exude humility in the face of praise, to constrain anger in a setting of misunderstanding, to show hospitality when there is need, etc., etc., etc.
And friends, let’s not forget that this kind of conduct, conduct worthy of the call of God upon our lives, is often required of us in difficult circumstances. It is one thing to be a patient person when all on the home front is cool, all at work is satisfying, and life is good. It’s quite another thing when nothing in any part of life is clicking. Nothing rips our masks of piety off quite so quickly as pain. Nothing spotlights the condition of our souls quite so quickly as suffering. Nothing punctures the balloon of our image quite so quickly as affliction. Who we are and what we are is never so loudly broadcast as when we hurt.
Isn’t it interesting that when Paul begins to pray for these friends, he doesn’t pray for release from suffering; he doesn’t ask God to remove those responsible for the affliction; he doesn’t petition God to provide green pastures and quiet waters. What he does ask is that God would enable them to endure their pain with the kind of class and character that reflects positively on His power and grace.
Friends, let’s pray for one another. Let’s ask God to enable us to live in such a way that our claims to know God have merit in the eyes of those who see our behavior, especially in troubled waters.
Paul’s second request of God on behalf of these new believers is that God would fulfill their every desire for goodness. The term for “goodness” here in the Scriptures is always human goodness, and the term is a relative of the word “generosity”. And the word “desire” could also be the term “resolve”. Another translation, then, of Paul’s prayer is that God would fulfill ‘their every resolve proceeding from generosity.’
Paul recognizes that suffering can make Christians hard-hearted. He knows the tendency that pain fosters towards anger, bitterness, and stinginess. He knows we feel less open-handed, less open-hearted when pain and affliction overwhelm us. And we know it too. Who wants to think of someone else when our need for comfort is so great? Who has the energy to focus on being generous to someone else when our suffering is screaming full blast in our souls?
That’s why Paul is praying! He knew it was important to pray in this specific way that these believers would emerge from their trials having a reputation for goodness and generosity. He knew it was critical that these Thessalonians have a clear resolve to do good and that that resolve would bear fruit. Only God could provide that kind of energy! Only God could fulfill that resolve!
I read this week partial stories of three men of resolve. We are all familiar with Winston Churchill’s statement in 1940: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we will never surrender.” That is resolve.
I was also introduced to William Harvey this week. He was a physician, born in England in 1578, and through his resolve, he introduced to the medical community the bulletproof theory that the heart was a pump that pushed the blood through a circulatory system in the body. Up until then, it was generally thought that the body had two kinds of blood pushed through the body by the constant twitching of arteries. The heart was believed to be a device that heated the body and filtered the blood.
One of Harvey’s teachers who impressed him a great deal was the great astronomer, Galileo Galilei. Galileo always urged his students “to continue studying science by experimenting, measuring, and examining things for themselves, rather than believing blindly what others had told them.” William Harvey’s resolve to explore further than his collogues became the foundation for blood transfusions, open-heart surgery, and artificial hearts. That is another kind of resolve for goodness.
Perhaps the most fascinating example of resolve for goodness comes out of the experience of Frank Laubach Mr. Laubach rose from a lonely missionary assignment in the Philippines to become a Christian world statesman. He founded the World Literacy Crusade and exerted quite a great influence upon United States foreign policy after World War Two, though he never had any political appointment to any State Department post.
The fulfillment of Frank Laubach’s ‘resolve for goodness’ began with a process that started in January of 1930. In that month, he began to cultivate the habit of turning his mind to Christ for one second out of every minute. After four weeks of this practice, this is what he reported: “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me, for I never felt it this way before. I need something, and turn round to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me.”
Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy, says that Laubach “always knew that his brilliant ideas and incredible energy and effectiveness derived from his practice of constant, conscious interface with God.”
Does anyone doubt that someone was praying for this missionary, that God would fulfill his every resolve, his every desire for goodness and generosity? It is patently clear that that is exactly what God was doing in his life!
Friends, this would be a good prayer to lay at the throne of God on behalf of our friends. We ought to ask God to give us and our friends resolve for goodness. We are well aware that ‘desire’ is abundant everywhere in our day; ‘resolve’ is much harder to find in our day of fast food and instant gratification. So, what resolve do we have that is growing our of our generosity? What would we say we are committed to in the arena of goodness with the resolve of Winston Churchill, William Harvey, or Frank Laubach? Then we need to ask God to fulfill that resolve out of His reserves of power and goodness. Let me offer a practical suggestion: in your next Bible study meeting, your next church board or committee meeting, your next small group meeting, when the leader asks for prayer requests, don’t offer a prayer request for someone who is sick. Ask those gathered with you to pray that God would fulfill your desires, your resolve for goodness and generosity. Then listen as you pray to see what things God might speak to you about resolve and goodness and generosity.
Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians was that they might be counted worthy of God’s high call of them, that He would fulfill their resolve to be generous, and thirdly, that He would fulfill their work of faith with power.
Notice that Paul speaks here of the ‘work of faith.’ Faith is supposed to be demonstrable; it is supposed to be seen with power. When Gallup surveys show that 94% of Americans believe in God and 74% of Americans claim to have made a commitment to Jesus Christ, and 34% proclaim a ‘new birth’ experience, and when these same groups reveal shocking statistics for unethical behavior, crime, mental distress and disorder, family failures, addictions, financial imbalances, etc., etc., we wonder where the “work” of faith is!
The great apostle prays for these friends because he did not want the suffering of these Thessalonians to be like a drought on a crop of good deeds. He didn’t want their efforts in faith to be blocked, stifled, choked, or short circuited by pain and affliction. His prayer is that their faith will know God’s power so that they can continue to bear fruit in the face of all their difficulties. His prayer is that all their acts of faith would be filled with the energy of God Himself. Paul’s prayer is that the charcoal of faith’s work would glow more brightly under the fanning of suffering.
This too would be a good prayer to pray in our next elder meeting, our next council meeting, our next small group study. O Lord, fulfill our work of faith with power that is obviously from You.
Let’s step back a moment and catch again a glimpse of Paul’s intent in this prayer for his friends. He doesn’t want these believers to give in to their desire for relief from their suffering before God has done His work of character development. Paul wants these new converts to be counted worthy of their high calling in Christ Jesus.
Paul also doesn’t want these new Christians to give up in their afflictions before they have a chance to see God carry them through the dark valley and out into the light of victory. God wants to see their resolve develop into a reputation for goodness and generosity that He has fulfilled.
And finally, the great leader of Gentile Christians, the one who always carried about in his own body a thorn in the flesh, prayed that his friends wouldn’t give out in bearing good fruit because they had run out of power. God would fulfill, with His power, their works of faith.
We ought always to pray that we ourselves and our friends would not give in, nor give up, nor give out in this wonderful calling we have received from our great God.
Finally, Paul tells us the great purpose in his prayer – that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you and you in Him. Paul’s desire is that these Thessalonians will be such a bright light, shining so clearly in regards to the reality of their salvation, that all who see them will see what a great Savior the Lord Jesus really is. Their character, their reputation, their strengths, their virtues bring glory to the One who is responsible for them.
It would seem that the Lord Jesus would have enough majesty and enough glory and enough splendor to stand alone above all His competitors. But God long ago decided that His Son would be glorified through us, the church. That’s a mind-boggling idea, isn’t it? God is seen to be magnificent because of our part in His plans! We indeed have a high calling; we indeed have a huge responsibility.
I want to conclude this morning with a few suggestions on how we might pray in the pattern of Paul’s prayer we see here.
Pray specifically. It is not hard to see how Paul has focused his praying on three specific issues related to his Thessalonian friends. We can do the same.
Pray situationally. How can we get in tune with what God is doing for the sake of His kingdom? What does this situation look like from the perspective of the Creator? Perhaps we ought to pray less for healing of sickness and relief from suffering and more for God’s will to be done and more for His glory to shine.
Pray sensibly. Suffering, affliction, and pain are not always to be avoided or escaped. Our prayers to be worthy of our calling are far more certain and likely to be answered than selfish desires for comfort and ease. Our prayers for resolve in being generous have a great chance of being answered. Our prayers for a faith that works with power will certainly please the Father.
When we pray in this way, we participate in bringing God’s will to pass in our world.
DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!
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