Champions Still

As I said before, it's good to be home. It's good to be able to be back in this pulpit and to minister to familiar people. As the Lord gives opportunity to minister in different places and in different churches, I'm thankful for what He's doing here. And I know that we don't do everything right. But I am thankful that God seems, at least to me, to be at work here and still moving us along.

Let's take our Bibles and turn back to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. We're going to finish reading the entire epistle this morning, so you get a view of it. So we're going to begin reading where Jake left off, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, beginning in verse 13. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word finally brothers pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men for not all have faith but the Lord is faithful he will establish you and guard you against the evil one, and we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing well and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us because we were not idle when we were with you nor did we eat anyone bread without paying for it but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have the right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

For even when we were with you, we would give you this command, If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Now, may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine.

It is the way I write. the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Let's pray. Father, we've heard this whole epistle. We've heard your word. We've heard your voice in these words. We pray now, Lord, as we look over this, that you would help us to grasp its basic meaning and that, Lord, even this would move us to change and move us to more faithfulness to you as we face hostility and as we face the temptations of comfort and ease.

So Lord, help us now to learn, and again, not learn just that we have more facts at our disposal, but that we would learn so that we would bring our lives into conformity to that word and live lives that express the glory of a great God and that everyone will see the rays of that glory in the way we live. That's what we're asking. So help us now, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Every champion needs a coach When I was a senior playing high school football we got a new head coach And he led us to the conference championship He would demand from us things we thought we could not do. He would get angry with us when he thought we weren't giving 110%. He would plead with us when he thought we were ready to give up.

He would inspire us to win before we ran on the field. Every gold medal winner has a coach. One that will not let up when the athlete faces insurmountable obstacles. Well, now, when you come to Second Thessalonians, you hear the voice of a coach who's going to say whatever is necessary to help this church finish well. now remember the church in Thessalonica is a championship congregation running the race well we saw that in the weeks where we spent in first Thessalonians Paul you remember had been worried about them they had come there and ministered the gospel for a short time and then had to leave and he was worried about what was happening with that church after he had left you remember that and so he when he was in Athens he sent Timothy back to find out what was going on Timothy caught up to him and Silas and Corinth and he brought a report that they were holding fast in the face of persecution and that they had continued to grow he reported as he came back and as we looked at first Thessalonians Paul's response to them as he wrote the letter back to them was this they had a reputation for transformed lives and for sharing the gospel.

They handled affliction well and they had great affection for the gospel messengers and for one another. Yet these champions still had room to grow. They struggled with sexual purity and needed to pursue holiness. Some needed to settle down in order to lead quiet lives characterized by the dignity of hard work and independence as opposed to laziness and dependence.

They needed to comfort and encourage one another with the good news of Jesus' return on the day of the Lord in victory. They needed to learn about joy and prayer, thanksgiving and good works. But the refrain you remember was consistent They were doing well and they needed to do so more and more And so we noted that this was a congregation that where things were going well And so as we left First Thessalonians we see Paul cheering the champions to the finish line.

Now we come to the second letter that Paul writes to those champions of the faith. What led to the writing of the second letter? This is where we have to piece some things together from the clues that we find there and from what we see in the book of Acts. Now remember that after Paul, Paul was in Corinth, you remember? And he had left Thessalonica, went to Berea, went to Athens, and ended up in Corinth.

When he was in Athens, worried about the people back in Thessalonica, he sent Timothy back. Timothy got a picture of the situation, found Paul now who was in Corinth with Silas, and gave them a report. And so as a result of that report, the Apostle Paul pens 1 Thessalonians, what we know as 1 Thessalonians, and sends it back with Timothy. After delivering the letter, it appears, Timothy came back and updated Paul and Silas.

So he left them, sent Timothy back. Timothy came with the report. Paul writes 1 Thessalonians. He sends it back with Timothy. We don't know how long there was between Timothy's report and the writing of 1 Thessalonians. We don't know how long then between 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

We just know that this time again, Timothy comes back again and updates Paul and Silas about what's happening. And it appears, as you read 2 Thessalonians, it appears that persecution had intensified and that the disorderly, lazy way of life had increased among some of the members. You can see that in the structure of the letter. So what we're going to do this morning is kind of fly over 2 Thessalonians, give you an idea of it, give you an idea of what's going on, the tone of it, and all that.

So as we fly over the book, what do we see? Here's the structure of the letter. from chapter 1, verse 3, okay? Chapter 1, verse 3, all the way through chapter 3, verse 5. 1-3 through 3-5 is the first section of the book. And Paul gives here a great deal of attention to the affliction and persecution that God's people endure. So as we look at that, we're going to see that there's lots of things we need to learn as we live in an increasingly hostile culture toward our faith.

We're going to learn some things there that are going to help us to stand. He encourages them in this section of the book to steadfast faithfulness to Jesus as they endure hatred and affliction. He does that, first of all by speaking of God's work in them already. You see in verse 3, we thank God for you and we boast to all the other churches about how well you are doing.

And so he begins with encouraging them with what he already sees, but then moves on all the way up through verse 12 and tells them they can stand firm in their faith because God will one day mete out justice to those who torment them. He's going to mete out justice to their tormentors. Now, by the way, when we get into that section of the book, you're going to find something that we typically don't hear.

And that is this. Christians gain hope when they know that God will take vengeance on their enemies. God will take vengeance on those who torment his people. That should tell us a lot right there. That's what he's going to say to them. That justice is going to be meted out to their tormentors when Jesus returns in power and in victory.

And then in chapter 2, verses 1 through 12, is this section teaching about the man of lawlessness. Who is this guy? What is that all about? Well, what we need to understand as we read that, the main point of that is not to satisfy some kind of end-time curiosity those folks had. He wasn't writing that to say, okay, now the end times, man, they're going to be like this.

He doesn't write it with that in mind. He doesn't write it to satisfy their end-time curiosity. He does it to destroy a wrong belief that they had embraced that was robbing them of hope in the midst of their pain Isn that interesting Having gone to seminary and having read tons and tons of books over the last 34 years there tons of stuff written on 2 Thessalonians 2 1 Who is this man of lawlessness?

What is that all about? There's tons of ink spilled on that, but almost all miss the point. Why is he even talking about it at all? because they had embraced a view of the end times that robbed them of their hope in the midst of their pain. You see, one of the things we need to learn from this book is that God tells us about the end times so that we live correctly now.

He has never written those things to satisfy some kind of curiosity about the end of the world. It's all about what's going on now. How are the people of God going to stand? they have to have the right view of the end. And then in chapter 2 verses 13 through 17 he exhorts them to stand fast in light of a salvation that leads to glory. Salvation is more than just how do I get to heaven.

Salvation ends up with the glory of Christ shining in the face of the people of God. So that's the first section of the book. it deals with persecution it deals with hardship and affliction and how God's people endure and stand faithful to Jesus in the midst of all that affliction and then from chapter 3 verse 6 through chapter through verse 15 he turns his attention to the problem of disorderly and lazy lifestyles and what it means and what what what god's people ought to be known for and how we ought to respond to people who refuse to work so you see then the main point here is the situation has changed like situations always do you know i can say this life here in larue at larue baptist church and in this community is a whole lot different than it was 34 years ago when I arrived. Situations change and the ministry of God then, the ministry of the gospel, faithful ministry of the gospel then changes as well with different emphases and different things that must be known in order to handle the changed situation Now the other thing you see is not only that the situation changes all right but you also have to see that the tenor of the letter has changed And as such it different than most of Paul letters This letter is different than most of Paul's letters.

Here's why. Most of Paul's letters... Okay, now let me just step aside here. And I can't step too far because I'm not wearing the mic, so I'll just kind of step over here. when I talk about Paul's letters and Paul's writings understand something Paul is God's spokesman when Paul writes you listen because it's God talking it's not just Paul but Paul is the writer that God uses so when I refer to Paul's letters I'm still referring to the word of God and what God says it was just a way of helping us understand how God used this instrument so here's Paul.

He's writing all these epistles. Most of the New Testament is Paul, right? Got all these letters, these epistles written by him. And typically he follows a certain pattern. Here's what he does. He usually writes the first half of his letters concerning the grace of God in Christ and the wonders of what God has accomplished in his son Jesus.

So you have Ephesians 1 through 3 and Colossians 1-2 and Romans 1-11, where he just expounds on all that Jesus has done for us, all that Christ has done in us, all those things that God has accomplished by grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Usually that's the first half of the book. and then normally in the second half of those letters he addresses our responsibilities and duties in light of the grace of God look at what God has accomplished now this is how you respond in obedience and how you need to live in response to those things and so you have Ephesians 4 through 6 Colossians 2 through 4 Romans 12 through 16 all of them dealing with our duties and responsibilities. In 1 Thessalonians, remember, we saw that.

Remember, the book is divided into reflection and then direction, right? Let's reflect on how God worked amongst you, and then direction. Now, here are areas where you need to grow. And typically, that's how Paul writes. But this letter is different because it's entirely devoted to exhortation, encouragement, responsibility and duty. The whole thing is devoted to that He devotes most of his words to help accomplish a steadfast unbreakable faith in the midst of affliction and persecution, in response to those things.

Most of it, from chapter 1, verse 3, through chapter 3, verse 5, is devoted to accomplishing that steadfast, unbreakable faith in response to persecution. And then from chapter 6 through 15, the rest of his words he gives to produce a people who will give themselves to the dignity and the necessity of hard work. And so it's an exhortation in two areas, persecution and work.

Faithfulness here and opposing laziness there. And so the whole letter is an exhortation. It's a little bit different than most of his letters. It's all exhortation. Now, what you see is this as well. Because the situation has intensified, the voice of this epistle gets more intense than the last one.

In the first letter, Paul sounds more like a fan, a supporter, who's cheering the team on. You're doing well. Do so more and more. But now in this letter, he's a coach. All right. He's a coach, exhorting, encouraging, inspiring, demanding. so the situation has intensified and his voice then gets more intense from fan and supporter to coach where now he's in the middle of it and he's demanding certain things he's trying to inspire them to certain things he's exhorting them and encouraging them and like a coach he has to help the congregation because the stakes have increased and adversity has intensified But note this as well, that like any athlete, they face the danger of disorderliness.

When an athlete gets lazy, distracted, sloppy, and undisciplined, the coach has to get tough. I remember my coach in high school. He thought we were not in very good condition. And man, he just ran us through the ringer. Right. He said, you're going to be you guys are you're just kind of undisciplined.

You don't have much endurance. And so I remember the first part of practices was nothing but just getting us conditioned. And so that's what's happening here. When an athlete gets lazy and distracted, sloppy and undisciplined, the coach gets tough. Paul has to move some of these folks to get with the program. And it sounds like it when you get to that part.

He sounds tough. Okay? He's saying to them, some of you are getting distracted and sloppy. We're not going to have that. And so the last half of the letter, it gets kind of tough. Because they're just undisciplined.

Some of them are. So the voice you hear is the voice of one coaching the champions to the finish line. So he's moved from fan and supporter to coach now. He's gotten more intense in the way he addresses them. And so, folks, this is our letter. This isn't just written to people long ago and far away.

This is our letter. Remember what I said early on in our study of First Thessalonians? I believe that LaRue Baptist Church is a champion congregation. There's lots of good things going on, and we need to do so more and more. But then situations in congregational life can change, and we will often face the same difficulties that he addresses here. In fact, I believe, and I'm no prophet here, but I believe that as Christians we're going to face much more hostility than we have when I was a kid.

The generation, you young people, the generation coming up, you're going to face a lot more hostility than I did as a kid. And when I was a kid, where I grew up, religion, religion was a given. Everybody was religious. There was no hostility toward religion. We would have, you know, and where I grew up in German-Polish land of Wisconsin, you're either Catholic or Lutheran. or a few Baptists.

All right? And things like no school, no school would ever schedule anything on a Wednesday night because all the churches had something going on on Wednesday night and nothing certainly on Sunday And there was not hostility towards it. There's open hostility now towards our faith and our culture now. Open hostility, and it's getting stronger. And I think 2 Thessalonians is going to say a lot to us, especially to the next generation coming up, as to how we face affliction, how we face persecution, how we face hostility.

So this letter is addressed to us. This is God's word to us. Now, things change. That's the nature of life. The situation changes. The ministry of the word then changes in response.

The word doesn't change, but there comes certain emphases, certain different things that have to come out, as we're going to see in 2 Thessalonians. But then, some things never change. Some things never change. What do you see in this book that has not changed? It's real easy. Look at the first two verses.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by command of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, I'm sorry, that's 1 Timothy. I said, that doesn't sound right. Where's Silas? Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Yawn, ho-hum.

It's the salutation. Right? That has not changed. But I think it's important for us to recognize that. What hasn't changed? Well, here's one.

It's the same missionary team. It's the same guys who brought them the news of a Redeemer who had come to purchase a people. It's the same men who have a heart for them, is concerned about them, who shared their lives with them, you remember, who shared their lives with them. It's the same men. But what else do you find that's familiar here? Here's what you find.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. that should sound familiar because every subsequent letter after this starts the same way. You know, as I was studying this passage, I said, huh, and I looked at all the epistles of Paul All of them save one start the same Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ That should sound familiar because every subsequent letter to this starts the same way. The only one that's different is 1 Thessalonians where he just says grace and peace to you.

Just an abbreviated form, grace and peace to you. but then in every single letter he pens, he begins with grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Near the end of his life, in 1 and 2 Timothy, as he's nearing the end of his life, he adds mercy. And so in those two epistles he says, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay? Grace, mercy, and peace. I know what you're saying. You're saying, oh no. Oh no. I know what you preachers do.

You can pick out a greeting like this and explain six different ways that grace expresses itself. Right? One of my sons and I recently had a discussion about that. I'll leave it up to you as to which one it was. We had a discussion of that practice. And he said, Dad, why do teachers, preachers, and authors see a phrase like that and then find six ways grace finds expression in our lives?

It doesn't seem to me that Paul intended to communicate six ways grace expresses itself in our lives when he says, grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't seem that's what he's saying. And you know what? He's absolutely correct in that. That isn't what Paul intended to say. Paul never intended to say, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, to say then, okay, let's find out everything we can say about grace now.

All right? Which is what preachers do. They pick on a word and they build a whole edifice on one brick. Right? That's not the way to do it. And that's not right, because that's not what he intended to communicate.

He didn't intend to communicate that. On the other hand you can ignore those words because he wanted to communicate something What is it Here the key As I thought about that I thought this The question to ask is not, what are all the ways that grace expresses itself? Because Paul's not aiming at that. He's just greeting you. So the question is, why does Paul begin every epistle with a reference to grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ?

That's the question to ask. Why does he do that in every epistle? Here's why. Paul wants you to see everything through the lens of the gospel. Well, how do we know that? Well, let's think this through.

Just like we begin letters with something like, dear Jake. When you write a letter, we were always taught to, dear so-and-so. And usually what's the next words that follow? when you're a kid and you're learning to write letters. Dear Jake, how are you? Yeah, good. See, you got it down.

That's how we start every letter. Okay? Now, just like we begin letters like with, Dear Jake, how are you? Right? The people of that day started their letters with a common salutation. Here's the word.

Karen. Karen. If you want to write it down, C-H-A-R-E-I-N Karein, which means to rejoice. But when it's used in a letter, it meant greetings. Not real snappy, is it? That's how you typically started a letter, with Karein, greetings.

But the Apostle Paul changed the normal greeting from Karein to Karis, C-H-A-R-I-S, which is the word that means grace. So he changed that, and then he added the traditional Jewish greeting, Shalom, or peace, grace and peace. And of course, then he added what? From God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul takes a normal salutation that you'd start any letter.

He takes a normal salutation and like he does. with everything, he turns it into gospel. He takes a normal salutation and he turns it into gospel. He sees all of life and wants you to see all of life through the gospel. I think that's what he's trying to do. I think that's what he's trying to communicate. Let's start out with this.

We all have grace and peace from God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Before I talk to you about the false teachers, you need to know about grace and peace. Before I write you a missionary letter that enlists you to help me and outlines the whole gospel, let's remember it's grace and peace. Right? When I want to write a letter to you about the nature of the church and all that God has done for us and how we need to be in church, you need to understand grace and peace reign.

So what's the first thing Paul communicates every time he speaks or writes God's words to you. What does God say to you every time you open up one of these epistles? You're immediately reminded that God has been so gracious to you that even though you don't deserve it, God took the initiative to rescue you. What's he saying? He's saying, look, Jesus has rescued people from their sin.

Jesus came to rescue. And God took the initiative. You weren't looking for God. God took the initiative. That's what he's communicating by grace. And you have the assurance now that all is right between you and God.

Grace reigns in the relationship between you and God. This is our reality. And the result is that you have what every human being longs for. What is it? Peace. You have what every human being wants, and that's peace.

You have the assurance. There's peace in your soul. Why? Because you know that God is always for you and never against you. And because of that, you can thank him for all that he's done and look at whatever comes your way with the assurance that he will overrule it and use it for good. And so he says, grace and peace, which originates from God our Father and comes into our human history through Jesus Jesus is not listen I know I saying a whole lot more than Paul did but I think this is what he's communicating with those words.

The reality, this reality that this Jesus is not just some unique human individual, he is the very vehicle of grace to you that everything can be right between you and God and that he brings peace so that nothing can upset you nothing can turn your life upside down and so you have to see all of life from this larger theological perspective this is the perspective he brings to everything he writes grace reigns between you and God and there is now peace. All of it comes from God through Jesus. That's what we all have to understand.

When you go to work tomorrow, you have to be aware of the grace and peace that you have from the Father through Jesus. When you spend time with your family in the evening, you must see them through the lens of the grace and peace that you possess from God through His Son. When you go grocery shopping, you're in the reality of grace and peace from God through Jesus when you lose somebody when you lose somebody that's dear to you what's your reality? grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus what does a church facing persecution and temptation need to hear?

They need to hear about grace and peace. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, before I start telling you what you need to do, you need to be aware of the reality in which you live, and that is the reality of grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And that reality then determines the course of your life. The reality that determines the course of your life is not the political turmoil that you're surrounded with, and it never seems to end.

And everybody gets so uptight about it. That's not the reality that should control you. The reality that controls you is grace and peace. The reality that controls you should not be the grind of work every day As you go to work you recognize you in the realm of grace and peace When heartbreak that inevitably comes in a broken world, what is your controlling reality?

It must be the grace and peace from God through the Lord Jesus. Or anything that you experience of life in this present age. Grace and peace is your reality. What's the controlling reality of the brothers and sisters in Albania? It's the grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not the Muslim, that nominal kind of...

I said in a post I put up that Albania is Muslim like Spain is Catholic and the American South is Baptist. you know it's a cultural thing it's not a deep down religion but that culture they're surrounded by this islamic this kind of light light islam right that's not their controlling reality to our brothers and sisters in christ there's a whole different reality in their lives it's the grace and peace from god our father and the lord jesus christ the other day we uh you know as i was in portland with my brother-in-law bob and becca and becca and i took a break and we got on the trolley you know small town hicks trying to experience big city life and so we got on this trolley we bought tickets and they have trolleys that go through portland you know the tracks in the road and all that cars have to stop so the trains can go through at the intersection it's really quite cool but i you know i'm sitting on there we're sitting on this trolley and i'm looking at what has to be the oddest collection of humanity I've ever seen. I don't know if that's the way all urban life is or if that's just because Portland is such a liberal city and you just attract odd specimens of humanity. I don't know.

But I'm looking at all these odd specimens of humanity and I'm thinking this. Their reality is entirely different than mine. Mine is grace and peace What theirs What their reality Do they have that Are they awash in a reality of malice and hopelessness This is our reality This is what we have. The reality that should color and control and determine every step of life is the grace and peace that comes from God our Father by the Lord Jesus Christ.

What do we need as a church then? What's the championship course that we should pursue? This book will tell us what we should pursue as we live in an increasingly hostile culture. To our faith, to us, this book is going to tell us how we ought to live. This book is going to tell us how we ought to live in a culture that invites laziness, in a culture that says, don't worry about it, we'll take care of you.

What's this book going to tell us? How we ought to live in that kind of a culture, you see? This book is the voice of God in the midst of a culture that runs contrary to what he has said. and it's going to tell us how then we face it. How are we going to face it? What are we going to do? That's what we're going to see.

And we're going to see that this is the way people who are determined by grace and peace are going to live. Whose controlling reality is what they have with God and with his son. This book is going to open up those vistas for us. so let's ask God to help us learn the lessons so that we can live in a unique way in this culture father thank you for your word thank you for the explicit nature of it there isn't one part of our life that the word of God doesn't address there's not one stone unturned.

And so, Lord, as we embark into 2 Thessalonians, would you please help us to learn the lessons? Help us to examine our lives in the light of your word. Help us, Lord, to change. And not just change, so that we're different. But again, as we've prayed before, that the rays of your glory would be seen in our lives. And so as we embark on this study, help us.

For the glory of your name. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.