This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County
of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
God's comfort is everlasting. There's never a day when you
won't have God's comfort. All we have to do is just
entreat him forward and Good Hope by grace.
And of course, that Good Hope, it's seeing Jesus Christ return
and also having that eternal life, that's our Good Hope, He
said. May He comfort your hearts in
verse 17 and establish you, comfort your hearts, or
encourage your hearts, and establish you or strengthen you
in every good work. Believers in Christ have a
comfort from God that includes a true freedom from guilt.
For Christians, our righteous judge is also our loving Savior,
which is a sharp contrast with the terrifying assortment of
distant, cruel, or unappeasable deities of the ancient world.
Today, Pastor Lewis will be reminding you that whenever you
need help and comfort, you can go to your Father in heaven.
Don't run back to the world when things get tough.
Instead, run straight to Jesus. Now here's Pastor Lewis in the
Book of Second Thessalonians Chapter 2, with today's edition
of Living Waters of Grace. We do have a kind of a
challenging topic because we're going to talk a little bit about
church discipline. We're going to be talking about
those who don't want to work in busy bodies and things of that
nature. These are things that aren't
popular to talk about, but the Lord does have a opinion on
those things. I mean he, he, he talks very
strongly about those things. Charles Spurgeon had to say this
about busybodies and and those who are lazy and don't want to
work. Charles Spurgeon says I am not
the only one that condemns the idol for once.
When I was going to give our minister a pretty long list of
the sins of one of our people that he was asking after I begin
with, he's dreadfully lazy. That's enough, said the old
gentleman. All sorts of sins are in that
one. All sorts of sins are in that
one. So we're going to talk about
some of those things Now we have, we're, we're on the end of
Second Thessalonians. So we have, you know, we, we've
covered, we're, we're covering the three chapters that it's
involved in. So the first chapter we covered
two weeks ago, we covered the Lord's final judgment and glory.
And that was on the heels of talking about the rapture that
we covered in First Thessalonians chapter 4.
In chapter 2, Paul assures the church that they didn't miss the
rapture and that they're not currently living in the times of
the great tribulation. There's a couple things have to
happen. First, he said there has to be
an apostasy or that falling away, that rebellion, and it has
to be the revealing of the man of sin.
And this week he concludes this, that this epistle or this letter
to the Thessalonians, he, he includes it by requesting
prayer, first of all for his ministry for himself, Silas and
Timothy. And also he gives a warning
against idleness and being a busy body.
So let's get into these scriptures, OK?
We look at verse 1, chapter 3, verse one, and it reads like
this. It says finally, brethren, pray
for us that the word of the Lord runs swiftly and be glorified
just as it is with you. If we can just stop there for a
second. Parenthetically, we get a chance
to hear Paul coming off of the end of chapter 2 where he prayed
for them and this was Paul's prayer for them.
At the end of chapter 2, verse 16, he says, now may our Lord
Jesus Christ himself and our God and Father who has loved us and
given US everlasting consolation, everlasting
comfort. We talked about last week how
God's comfort is everlasting. There's never a day when you
won't have God's comfort. All we have to do is just
entreat him forward and Good Hope by grace.
And of course that Good Hope is seeing Jesus Christ return and
also having that eternal life. That's our Good Hope.
He said may he comfort your hearts in verse 17 and establish
you. Comfort your hearts or encourage
your hearts and establish you or strengthen you in every good
work with word and work. So he ended his prayer and
talking about him, strengthening them and, and, and, and
comforting them in every good word and work.
So here in chapter 3, Paul now asked for them to pray for him
because Paul understands the significance of prayer.
He understands the significance of prayer.
We understand the significance of prayer here.
And we have a lot of different groups that are always praying.
I'm always talking about the group that we have on Thursday
nights because that intercessory group prays for you individually
and that group play prays for us as teachers.
It prays for us and we need the prayers of the people because
there is some everything that happens good in this church.
It comes on the heels of prayer. It comes on the heels of prayer.
It's men and women that are humbling themselves and going
before God and crying out to God for the things that we are
requesting of him. And what a privilege it is.
Excuse me to be a man of God or a woman of God, a child of God,
or be loved by God that we can go before him in prayer.
We have that privilege as children of God.
So we do that and we pray for each other.
But he asked for something specific here.
Paul asked for something specific.
He said not just pray, OK, that God will, that God will bless us
or help us, but he said he wants to pray that the Word will run
swiftly and be glorified. Pray that the Word of God will
run swiftly or rapidly spread, rapidly spread just as it did
with you, Thessalonians, just as it did with you.
We pray that that word will rapidly spread and be glorified,
just as it was with you. How is the Word of God
glorified? The Word of God is glorified
through US who hear the Word of God, who obey the Word of God,
who walk in the Word of God. The people who are unbelievers
get a chance to see God's power working through US, and it
glorifies not us, but it glorifies God.
Let your light so shine before man that he sees your good
works, and glorify God who is in heaven.
It glorifies him when we walk in the things of the Lord.
So he said, let the word run swiftly or quickly.
Let it spread rapidly and be glorified just as it is with
you. When Paul went to the
Thessalonian church and he preached the gospel, the Bible
says that they listened and received that word just like it
was in truth, not that it came from men.
They didn't take it like this was just somebody coming who has
some good ideas. This is a man with some good
theories, some good philosophies and what it makes sense, so
we'll listen. No, that's not how they took it.
They took it as it was in truth, Paul said, as the word of God.
When we hear the word spoken and we understand the authority of
that word that is coming from God, it has an impact on us.
That's a lot different than if someone said, listen what Lewis
said, who cares? Most people probably say who
cares, but when you hear that God said it, that gives
authority to it. So that's why we teach what thus
says the Lord and not what we said.
OK, So he said that this, he said that this word be glorified
as it was with them, and it was glorified in them.
When they heard the word, they turned, they turned, they
changed. They had a work of faith, they
had a labor of love and they turned away from their idols
and, and, and they were patiently, they became patient
waiting on Jesus Christ, a patience of hope, waiting on
Jesus Christ. That's how the word worked in
them, so much so that they became examples to other
churches. That's how effective the word
worked in them. And that's what we hope for our
church, that the word works in us to the point where we become
an example or we become effective in, in, in, in, in
dealing with our community, that the community can see the
difference between US and unbelievers and they want what
it is that we have. That's what we would love to see
the word working in US effectively.
So he says here be glorified just as it is with you.
And then verse 2, he says, and that we may be delivered from
unreasonable and wicked men. One of the things that we have
to understand is that whenever we are serving the Lord,
whenever we are serving the Lord and whatever, whatever capacity
you are serving the Lord in, it doesn't matter.
You don't have to be up here. You can be doing any kind of
ministry that you have. You're serving the Lord.
You are going to get opposition. Please do not be surprised when
you get opposition. Don't don't be surprised.
Don't back away from your ministry because you're getting
opposition. It should be a, a confirmation
to you that you're doing something right, that you are
doing what you're supposed to do.
There are always going to be people out there that are going
to oppose God's work. That's just the truth of the
matter. It's an unpleasant truth, but
it's the truth nonetheless. And here Paul says, I want you
to pray. This is the second part of his
prayer, he said, in that we be delivered, or in other words,
that we be rescued from unreasonable and wicked men,
from unreasonable and wicked men or troublesome, troublesome men,
men who have the capacity to do harm to us, harmful things, not
necessarily to us physically, but even to our ministries.
And wicked men, evil men, men who have a desire to corrupt
other men, that's evil. That's evil, have a desire to
corrupt other men. And he was talking here about
these unbelieving Jews who were persecuting the apostles because
of what they were teaching, always going to be persecution.
Nehemiah, he witnessed persecution from Sambalit and
Tobiah. Jesus Christ witnessed
persecution from the Pharisees. And Paul, once he became, once
he stopped being, when he was converted from being a Pharisee
to being saved, he became a Christian.
He began to experience persecution and opposition from
the unbelieving Jews. So we know there's always going
to be opposition. We know that, but we trust in
God. We look for God to help us to
get through that. And in verse three, he tells
them, he said, but the Lord is faithful.
Yes, there's going to be opposition to your ministry.
There are going to be people who are opposing you when you are
trying to do the right thing. There are going to be people
opposing you. But God is faithful.
God is faithful. And why did he say that?
Because at the end of verse 2, he says for not all men have
faith. All men don't believe in Jesus
Christ. All men aren't working in the
faith of Jesus Christ. But Paul said, but the Lord is
faithful. And trust me, it may not seem
like it sometimes it may seem like you're by yourself in that
ministry, but God is with you. He's with you, He's helping you.
He will give you the grace and the strength to persevere even
against the opposition. Does He always deliver us from
persecution and opposition? No, He gives us opportunity to
trust Him in it. That's what He does.
And He gives us the grace to be able to stand in the midst of
it, stand flat footed and trust him.
Trust his word, trust His promises, trust Him, His
strength, His wisdom, His knowledge.
Trust him. Don't trust our own.
This is the way I'm going to deal with it.
First I'm going to take him out. And then when I come back from
taking him out, I'm going to ask him to come outside with me and
I'm going to take him out. Now, that's man's wisdom.
That's man's Wiz. I know sometimes we may feel
like doing that sometimes like physically helping God to get
rid of our opposition. People are people that are
opposing us. I know sometimes we feel like
that, you know, I mean, that's when we get to the point.
Sometimes we got, I think I'm hearing God.
No, God ain't telling you that. God ain't telling you that, but
we trust God. He handles those things in our
lives, so he said, but the Lord is faithful who will establish
you and that means to strengthen you.
Just as we said, He will give us the strength to endure those
opposition's and guard you, guard you.
That means that He'll protect you.
He'll protect you from the evil 1 and that's what it's important
to be protected from is the evil 1, the influence of the evil 1,
Not even necessarily what they do physically.
What's the influence of the evil 1?
He protects us from that. The lies of the evil 1, the
deception of the evil 1. He protects US against those
things. And then he goes on in verse 4
and he says, and we have confidence in the Lord
concerning you both that you do and we'll do the things that we
command you, the confidence in the Lord.
We know that we are maturing in Christ Jesus when we no longer
walk by the confidence that we have in ourselves to do what the
Lord has called us to do. You want to know what maturity
is? That's what maturity is in the
Lord. For me to know that I can't
count on me to accomplish the work of the Lord, I can't do
that. I can't count on you to give me
what I need all the time to help me to do the work of the Lord.
We can't count on flesh. Jeremiah 17 and five says this.
He says curse. It is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the
Lord. We can't count on that.
We have to put our confidence in the Lord.
In everything that we do, we put our confidence in the Lord.
Philippians one and six says, being confident of this very
thing, that the good work that he has begun in me, he will
continue to do it until the day of Jesus Christ.
In Philippians 2 and 13, he says it is God who works in you, both
to will and to do of His good pleasure.
We can't count on ourselves, We can't count on men on the arm of
flesh, but we can count on the Lord.
Some believe in Chariots, right? Some believe in horses.
But I will remember the name of the Lord.
That's what I'm trusting in to help me.
Amen. So then we move on in here in
verse 5, we we're going to get to the crux of this.
In verse 5. He says, now may the Lord hears
another prayer. Here's another prayer.
Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and
the patience and into the patience of Christ, into the
love of God. May the Lord direct your hearts.
May the Lord lead your heart. May the Lord guide your heart
into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.
May the Lord remove the obstacles that's in your way
that stops you from understanding or experiencing
the love of God. May He remove those things in
your life that causes you to question the love of God.
My point is that the love of God is there.
We have to ask God to work in our lives so that we understand
and we that we we experience that love to know all beyond a
shadow of a doubt. The love of God is there for us.
Now. There's God loving us and
there's us loving him, us loving him.
Let's not do anything to break fellowship with the love of God.
We've already been told that nothing's going to separate us
from the love of God. We've been told that right over
in Romans 8. Nothing can separate us from the
love of God. It's us understanding that the
love of God is always there for us, always there for us, that
that's encouraging that regardless of how you feel, you
can't even trust your own feelings.
You can't trust man. You can't trust your own
feelings. You have to trust His Word.
We have to trust His word. He is always there for us and
Jude, Jude said that he said, how, how do we keep ourselves in
the love of God? He says praying in the Holy
Ghost, praying in the Holy Spirit, praying that keeps us in
the love of God because when we're praying, our focus, our
attention and our hearts are directed toward God and it's on
God. It's not on what's over here and
it's not on what's over there. It's upward.
My vertical relationship with the Lord, Amen.
And he said then to the patients of Christ, we know that there's
that patient that he talked about over here in First
Thessalonians 1 and 10, which talks about the, the, the, the,
the patience of hope. That means that patience that we
have and waiting for Christ to return.
We should do that patiently. And waiting for Christ to return
patiently means that we don't get to the point where we give
out and we just give up on Christ.
And go to the things of the world and do what we no, but we
wait patiently upon him being steadfast and what Christ has
given to us and what Christ has told us and being steadfast in
the work that Christ has for us. That's what he's talking about
when he says the patience of Christ the way patiently.
But there's also that patience of Christ, which talks about the
patience that Christ himself demonstrated when he was here
with us in on earth, when he was being persecuted, when he was
being reviled, when he was being threatened.
The patience that he had to continue to keep his eyes on the
Lord, keep his eyes on the Father.
He kept his eyes on the Father and he did the work of the
father the entire time he was here.
Nothing moved him. And that's the patience that
he's talking about. We know, you know, and we look
at what he says. We look at what he says over
here in verse where we had here verse five.
I've gotten above, I've gotten ahead of my notes here, but we
know that he says in, in first Peter 2 and 23, Peter says that
when he was reviled, meaning Christ, because Peter witnessed
it, Peter witnessed it when he was reviled, he reviled not
again. And when he suffered, he
threatened not, but he committed himself to him who judges
righteously. He was patient and waiting for
the time that he would be glorified to be back with the
Father, to be back with the Father.
That's a blessing. We need that patience to wait
for him. And then in verse 6 it says, but
we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly.
So now we're getting into the very meat of what this study is
about. And he starts that off with a
command. And verse 6 he says, we command
you. We give you strong instruction,
strong instruction that you withdraw.
But we don't do that in ourselves, brother.
We do that in the name or the authority of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. And He said that you withdraw
from every brother. That means withhold your
fellowship, withhold your fellowship, withhold your
communication, your communion. Hold that from this brother who
is walking in a disorderly fashion and this, this word
disorderly means that he's walking in a way that's he's
idle. He's walking in a divisive way
or disruptive or unruly. This is difficult because it's
us seeing a brother who is not walking in the things that we
have received from the Lord. And Paul says, OK, after so many
warnings, you have to just separate yourself for a while.
You got to withdraw from that brother to let him know that
what he's doing is not approved of in this community.
And this is not the first time that he gave those kind of
warnings that we go over. We go back, as a matter of fact,
the First Thessalonians chapter 5, First Thessalonians chapter
5. And look at verse 14.
He says now we exhort you and this is in the 1st letter, in
the first letter he said we exhort you brethren, warn those,
warn those or admonish those who are unruly, comfort the faint
hearted and uphold the weak. So he told him about that.
He wrote about that back in the 1st letter.
He knew what was going on and he said, look, you need to go in
and deal with those brothers that are unruly because they
will be a disruption in your community.
Thank you for joining us here today on Living Waters of Grace.
You might have noticed a different voice teaching this
message and that's because Pastor Lewis Harrell is coming
alongside Pastor Clark sharing in the teachings through Calvary
Chapel of Westmoreland. Pastor Lewis has been going
through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians verse by verse in
this series found in the Pauline Epistles.
These books are jam packed with wisdom and instruction for the
Christian life. If you haven't been challenged
by this book, you must not have been listening.
If that's you, I'll tell you in just a moment how to listen to
this message again. But for now, think about someone
that has been a mentor to you and your relationship with
Christ. How much did that person invest
in your faith and how critical were they in a time when you had
more questions than answers? Now think of someone you can
invest in. It's important to share your
faith and be there for others who are going through the same
thing you did when you were first saved.
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