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Transcript

Stand Firm · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Good morning. If you've got your Bibles, open them up to 2 Thessalonians 2. That's where we're going to be. If you do not know who I am, my name is Sam Porges. I'm the youth pastor here, and they let me preach. Praise Jesus. Joke's on you. No, 2 Thessalonians 2. It is an honor to be able to share this passage with you. You guys know we've been going through 2 Thessalonians just this year. We've been in it for about a month. And so we're going to cover verses 13 to 17.
• 0:31
  in chapter 2 this morning, and I'm excited about it. And before we really get into it, I want to pray. Because we're talking about just amazing things this morning, and I want just the Spirit to be here at work in our hearts. And so pray with me and then we'll begin. God, we are unbelievably grateful that You would consider us sinful people. God, that You would give us a Savior who is so merciful and so good.
• 1:05
  instead of imposing rule or instead of domineering us with Your power, You show us grace. And so I pray this morning that as we talk about what it means that You have chosen us, I pray that that would strike our hearts and inspire us and amaze us that You would be so good to people like us. We love You. In Jesus' name, Amen.
• 1:32
  Amen. Alright, well I heard a story that I wanted to share with you guys. But there were these two men who were absolutely evil, evil men. And they were brothers. They were partners in crime. And one day one of them suddenly died. And so the remaining brother found a church to do the funeral for his brother and went up to the pastor and said, Pastor, I will pay you any amount you want.
• 2:02
  if you do my brother's funeral. But there's a stipulation. You have to refer to him as a saint. I'll pay you anything you want. Just refer to him as a saint. And so the pastor considered this and paused for a moment and said, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. And so the day of the funeral comes and the man is in the casket right in front of the pulpit before everybody. And the pastor gets up and starts his eulogy for this man. And he says, this man you see before you was a criminal.
• 2:34
  He was an adulterer. He was a thief. He was a liar. He coveted. He did every evil act you could possibly think of, but compared to his brother, he was a saint. We love our own glory, don't we? Even when we know it's not deserved, right? We love it. And we see the natural human position
• 3:12
  To see any threat to our glory as something to be utterly avoided. Any threat to our praise, utterly avoided. In fact, church, in the current culture we live in, it is modern American church culture to love encouraging messages that boost your self-esteem and make you feel great about yourself, and then to downplay and avoid messages that are truthful or messages that challenge you. That is the current culture that we live in.
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  Now, our passage this morning is awesome, and here's why. It is going to completely strip you and me of all of the glory we think we deserve, and it's going to do it in the best way possible. It's going to do it in the most joyful way you can think of. The title for today's message is Stand Firm, which if you're in your Bibles right above 13, that's probably what the little subtitle says, Stand Firm.
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  And in this passage, Paul gives an encouragement to the Thessalonians in light of the dark future that they face. If you guys will remember, Danny's been preaching these last couple weeks and has gone through chapter 1 and then the first half of chapter 2. And in chapter 1, Paul speaks to the Thessalonians and just says, there is going to be a day when Christ comes. And when He comes, He will judge the earth. And those who have rejected Him will be sentenced to eternal hell. Eternal hell.
• 4:44
  And then in chapter 2, Paul talks to the Thessalonians about the Antichrist. He says there's going to be a day when this rebellion is going to come and an Antichrist is going to lead this large-scale rebellion against God. So you can imagine the Thessalonians feeling unnerved about some of this stuff. Like, have we missed the coming of Jesus? Are we going to get swept up in the judgment of Jesus? And now we're hearing about this Antichrist. Like, that's not chipper, right?
• 5:12
  Like, yeah, I feel great about the message. You know what I'm saying? That's not a chipper thing. And I think it's, honestly, I think it's kind of funny that the way the preaching schedule worked out, Danny gets eternal hell and the Antichrist, and I get stand firm. I'm just like, yes, yes. Thank you, Danny, for preaching the hard stuff, man. Praise God. Praise God. But Paul is going to give this encouragement to the Thessalonians this morning to stand firm. And as we're going to see, that encouragement is three-faceted.
• 5:43
  and its roots find their way down to what I'm calling this morning the chronologically comprehensive redemptive plan of God. The Gospel. The chronologically comprehensive redemptive plan of God. And so, let's jump right into it. The first thing that Paul's going to point out as a way of encouragement to the Thessalonians is their past calling. Their past calling. Look at verse 13. But we ought always to give thanks to God for you.
• 6:16
  Brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved. We ought always to give thanks for you, Paul says. Now that verse 13, I really like it because I don't know that the English wording really drives the point home, but when Paul says we ought always to give thanks for you, in the Greek it literally means we are bound to give thanks for you. We have to thank God for you. Why?
• 6:46
  Because God has chosen you to be saved. And he says you have been chosen by God to be saved as the firstfruits. Now that idea of firstfruits doesn't just mean that the Thessalonians were some of the first believers in the early church, although it does mean that. That word firstfruits could also be translated from the beginning. So he's saying our God has chosen you for salvation from the beginning. He has chosen.
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  You are the recipients of free grace of God on your life. This is how he chooses to encourage them by reminding them of their past calling. It says your God has chosen you from eternity past, from before you were born. And he didn't choose you because you were worthy. He didn't choose you because you decided to start a church and invite God in or because you cleaned yourself up enough, but simply because of his grace. God's choice of you was his initiative.
• 7:48
  He began the work. It was simply because of His goodness and His choice, get this, was completely outside of your control. I love Ephesians 1.3. Listen to how Paul writes this. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world.
• 8:20
  And then 2 Timothy 1.9 says this, God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ Jesus, listen, before the ages begin. Paul says you have been chosen. You have been called by God from the beginning. And that calling became operational in your life.
• 8:49
  Because of two things. Continue in verse 13. Look what he says. He says, God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through, what does he say? Sanctification by the Spirit and, what does he say? And belief in the truth. Paul says it was because of the Holy Spirit that your heart is regenerated and renewed. It's the Holy Spirit's work in your life.
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  To begin and carry out the work of sanctification. Now that's a really fancy theological term. All it means is that the Holy Spirit is purifying you and making you holy. It's His job. I love the way Titus 3 describes this. Titus 3, verses 4-6 says, But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy.
• 9:48
  By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out richly on us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Saying this calling of God became operative through the sanctification of the Spirit. And then, here's the human factor in your salvation is what he's saying. And belief in the truth.
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  God began the work, but the Thessalonians had to believe. And you guys all know Ephesians 2, right? It is by grace through faith that you have been saved. And so all the Thessalonians did was receive the grace of God and believe. This is their past calling. Are you tracking with me? No? Yes? Great. Okay, this is their past calling. Now he concludes this first part of his encouragement with verse 14. So look there with me. He says,
• 10:45
  He called you through our gospel so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, church, whenever you're reading the Bible and you come across the words so that, make sure you pay attention. Those are really, really, really important words because what they do is they describe a purpose to an action. You want to know why? The purpose of God's choosing of you, the purpose of the sanctification of the Spirit,
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  it is so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is saying to the Thessalonians, you have been called to salvation so that you may receive not condemnation, but glorification. Look back at verse 11. This is from our passage last week. Verse 11 describes those who reject God, reject the truth. Verse 11 says,
• 11:42
  God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe in truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Paul is saying for those who have rejected the truth, their sentence is judgment, but not you. You are chosen for salvation by a loving God. And because of that, your spiritual destiny is glorification. You obtain the glory of Jesus.
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  I was reading something last night in a book that I'm reading for my class right now at seminary. And the author put it so beautifully. He said, when you place your faith in Jesus, Jesus shares all that he has with you. And so because Jesus is God, he gives you the life of God. Because Jesus is the son of God, he makes you sons of God. Because Jesus has the confidence to cry out, Abba!
• 12:43
  And to draw near to the Father, He gives you and me confidence to draw near to the Father, the throne of God, and cry out, Abba, Father. And because Jesus is glorious, He gives you His glory. Now this doesn't mean you become a god or something weird like that, but when you have the glory of Jesus, that means that your entire life you get to spend reflecting the beauty and majesty of Jesus.
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  This is how Paul encourages the Thessalonians. Your spiritual destiny is glory. I love 2 Corinthians 3.18. This verse is so encouraging to me. This is also Paul writing. He says, And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. And so because of the sanctification of the Spirit, the longer you walk with Jesus,
• 13:45
  You will reflect more accurately the glory of Jesus one degree to the next. The longer you walk with him, the more purely you reflect his glory. Now, do you see how could the Thessalonians not be encouraged by that? Right? Now, here's where this is good news for us. The way in which God...
• 14:15
  Save the Thessalonians, right? By choosing them is the same exact way He has saved you and me today. God has not changed the way He saves people in the last 2,000 years since the church just got started. You and I, church, have been chosen by the loving God. You and I are the recipients of an unbelievable amount of grace and mercy.
• 14:47
  Favor and love. Now, here's why this is so important, okay? There's a number of reasons why believing that God chose you for salvation is important. First, if God chose you for salvation and you didn't choose yourself, all the credit goes to God and not you, right? Because he's wholly responsible for your salvation. And so you don't get to walk around with a swagger. Like, look what I did.
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  And Jesus like sprinkled grace on my efforts, right? That's not what happens. He gets all of the glory. Man, there's this idea in our culture that God helps those who help themselves. It's so like unequivocally false. God does not help those who can help themselves. Jesus came and said, I came for sinners, not the righteous. I came to find the lost sheep.
• 15:49
  I came to heal the sick, not those who are well. Man, it's crazy to me that the human heart doesn't want to believe that you need help. It doesn't want to believe it, right? But when you read this book, you cannot walk away from it knowing that you are in desperate need of help.
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  And you may think you're a Christian, you may come to church, but until you come to Jesus and acknowledge that you need help, Jesus isn't for you. Like, he breaks you and makes you realize, like, man, I need him. I cannot help myself. God, help me. So God helps those who can't help themselves. And the cherry on top of all of that is God's motivation behind helping you.
• 16:42
  You know that Ephesians passage that I just read a few minutes ago, right? We've received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as God has chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of the world. It continues in verse 4. And Paul says, in love, God predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ. According...
• 17:07
  to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. Before you were born, before you could prove whether you would be a good person or a bad person or a help to society or a burden on society, God considered you. You were in the mind of God. Isn't that amazing? Have you ever thought about what if God did not consider you? Because David writes, right?
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  God, who is man that you are mindful of him? There's nothing about me that's worthy of you considering. The creator and sustainer of all things. You think he's going to pay attention to you and me? But he does. Because he's good. It's amazing. He predestined you for adoption as sons. And you had nothing to do with it. It was all because of his love. I love how one man put it. He said, God's motivation...
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  And choosing you was His sovereign, uninfluenced, undeserved love. You couldn't influence His decision. You didn't go to God and say, hey God, it would be so cool if you sent your son to die on the cross for all of us because we need it. You had no part in it. It was His free, loving choice of you. And before you were born, I like to put it this way, before you were born, God had already filled out the adoption papers.
• 18:48
  He already had your picture in his wallet. And so if God chooses you, he gets all the credit. He gets all the glory. That's first. Secondly, if God has chosen us, it glorifies God in a greater way than the self-help gospel does because we can only boast in God. You can only boast in God. So when you look at your salvation and the sanctification of the Spirit in your life, you know.
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  That it's all the Lord because if He doesn't choose you, you're not in. If He doesn't consider you, you're not in. And so to know that God Almighty considers you and considers me is absolutely amazing. And we can glorify Him all the more because it was His free loving choice, right? Thirdly, knowing that we are chosen produces greater joy in us because if God loved you and me while we were still sinners, you know that His love for you is genuine, right?
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  Like God didn't wait for you to turn your life around to start showering you with love. He already loved you and He already loved me. So you know that His love is genuine. And then fourthly, if God chooses you, it gives you true security. Because if God chooses you, He ain't going to un-choose you. God doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't have any erasers, right? Listen to John 10. This is Jesus talking. He says,
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  My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. You want to know if your soul is secure for eternity? Think about your life being held in the hand of the Creator, the Almighty God. You think, what's going to snatch you out of that?
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  You think the sin you keep stumbling over and repenting of is going to snatch you out of that? No, Jesus already paid for that on the cross. You think all the powers of hell against you are going to snatch you out of His hand? No.
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  No way. He gives you security. And God gives you a greater security than your airbag can. He gives you greater security than your seatbelt can or your 401ks or your job security or your fancy alarm system, your retirement savings. He gives you greater security than all of that. He gives you security for your soul. Because your soul, Hebrews 6, right, is anchored to the Son of God who sits at the right hand of the Father. That's, man, I'm preaching. I don't know where you guys are at, but like, amen.
• 21:38
  Amen. God gives you security. What shall you fear? What weapon formed against you is going to prosper? You're in the hand of the Father. This is our past calling. You've been called. That's first. The second one. Not only do we have a past calling, but Paul also points out a present command. Past calling, present command. Let's look at verse 15.
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  So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the tradition that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. As the Thessalonians look to a future filled with unknowns, Paul says, hold to what we've taught you. Hold to what the apostles have said. Don't hold it loosely. Cling to it and stand firm. Hold your ground in the midst of the darkness. Dig your feet in and get ready.
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  Stand your ground. Man, church, the same command is for us today. As the church faces an increasingly hostile world, we can look to the past grace of God and the past calling of God to give us sustenance in the present. It sustains now. Now, I want to point out a couple of things about what it means to stand firm because I think sometimes standing firm is one of those things where...
• 23:05
  We're like, you should stand firm. And we're just like, yeah. And I don't know about you guys, but then I leave and I'm like, what does that mean? You know, and so I want to just talk about two really simple ways in which it means to stand firm. First, to stand firm means to be a person of conviction and not compromise. You guys know that in times of testing, you're forced to evaluate what you believe, right? Like, do I actually believe what I claim to believe? Do I hold to my convictions? Or do I...
• 23:40
  Do I compromise when I'm around people who would think lesser of me that I'm a Christian, if I start acting like a Christian? Do I compromise at my job because I want to fit in? Do I compromise in my neighborhood because I don't want to be that weird Jesus person, right? And so standing firm means holding to what you believe. You hold to this. You build your life on the rock. And you let the truth govern your actions. So that's first.
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  Stand firm. Let the truth govern your actions. Secondly, I really do think that standing firm means keeping your emotions in check with the truth. I don't know about you, but I, man, I can sing. That's not all I'm going to say. Man, I can sing. No, I can sing with passion when everything is going right.
• 24:34
  And then the days when stuff goes wrong, then I start to get really nervous. And all of a sudden, all those songs about the sovereignty and greatness of God and I'm secure in His hand, right? All of that gets thrown out the window because I feel nervous and I feel anxious. And rather than keeping those emotions in check with the truth and reminding myself what this book says, I let those emotions reign in my life. Right? Have you ever done that? I've done it a ton. But what it means to stand firm is to go, no, I reject those emotions in Jesus' name. I'm not going to give in to fear.
• 25:03
  Perfect love casts out fear. And God loves me perfectly. I'm not going to be anxious. Anxiety adds nothing to my life, right? And so you remind yourself of the truth in order to keep your emotions in check. And so be a person of conviction, not compromise. And then secondly, keep your emotions in check with the truth. Do not let them reign over you because there is a greater king or queen than your emotions. And it's Jesus, right? That's the present command. Stand.
• 25:32
  We've got our past calling. We've got the present command. And then thirdly, we have the future comfort. The future comfort. Look at verse 16. It says this, 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. The favor and grace of God on your life
• 26:06
  will continue into the future. And when you think about the future and all that is unknown about it, right, there is one strong, unwavering known, and it's the grace and love of God toward you. It's not going to let you down. You can count on the love of God.
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  Now what's great about the love of God is rather than being some sort of immaterial concept or intellectual idea, the love of God has a real life in the dirt display. And it's Jesus on the cross. Again, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You want to know if God loves you? He initiated salvation for you before you ever asked for it, right? And it was Jesus on the cross.
• 27:13
  the cross and so we can look to jesus's death in the past and that gives us as the song says strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow right so the love of god paul says it not only comforts your heart right knowing that god is not going to let you down um but he says it also establishes your heart it establishes it now many of you guys know that part of the
• 27:41
  Part of the responsibility that I have here at the church is doing some of the graphic design type of stuff. And so whenever you guys see an image or banners or whatever, that's all been worked on and designed here at the church. And oftentimes what we'll do is we'll design banners for upcoming church events and we'll put them out in the front lawn. You guys have seen it for Christmas or Easter, VBS, those things. And what we do is we have to get these gigantic metal stakes and...
• 28:10
  put and like slam them into the ground with that huge like post. What is that thing even called? I don't even know. But the thing you put it right, you smash the post in the ground. It's wonderful. I just take out all my anger on that thing, you know, and we drive these posts into the ground. And then what we do is we display whatever's going on at the church on these signs by tying them to the stakes, right? And no matter what.
• 28:34
  weather comes our way, whether it's snow or rain or the wind's blowing like 30 miles an hour, which means there's going to be a storm tomorrow, right? No matter what weather comes our way, that thing stays tied to the stakes, even though it's just a flimsy little banner, right? Now what Paul is saying in regards to our future comfort is exactly that image. He's saying the love of God is firm. It's strong. You can depend on it. And all you and I are are these flimsy little banners trying to display the glory of Jesus.
• 29:04
  But when you're tied to him, you ain't going nowhere. He establishes your heart. That's our future comfort. And so as Paul encourages the Thessalonians, he reminds them of the chronologically comprehensive redemptive plan of God. He's saying God has been involved in your past, like in the way past, before there was before, right?
• 29:35
  He's called you. And then He's involved in the present, helping you to stand firm in the midst of darkness. And then as you look into the future, God is involved there too because He's going to comfort your heart and He's going to establish them by reminding you of what He's done in the cross of Jesus. Chronologically comprehensive. And I'm going to end with this, but last week Danny spoke of the need for resolve in the church regarding especially a lot of the political and social issues that are coming our way. Like the church is going to need to decide what it believes.
• 30:05
  It's going to need to be a church of conviction and not compromise. It's a scary world, but church, as we're facing that, you can stand firm. You have a foundation. Put your hope in God. Put your confidence in the Lord. Not in yourself. Not in the government. Not in some political party. Put your hope in Jesus. And I believe that when the church...
• 30:35
  does that. When we stand firm, we are tied to that post in the ground, right, when we're established. I believe that when a church lives by their conviction and not by compromise, they really can make a difference in the here and now, like in North Denver in 2019. This is why on this sermon slide, the background picture we put as a map of North Denver, if you haven't noticed that. Right, you've got the 25.
• 31:05
  Highway 36, 76 going that way. I can see my house. I'm like almost at the top, right? But this is why we put this image. It's actually the same image from the first Thessalonians series as well, just a different color. And the reason we did that is because as we seek to be people of growing faith and increasing love and enduring hope, that happens on the ground. It happens in North Denver in 2019, at your jobs, at your homes, with your families. It's real.
• 31:35
  It's real. And so as the church stands firm, we can make a difference here. Here. And all that's going to require us to do is to look straight at the Gospel and to display the glory of our Lord Jesus. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Man, God, we cannot thank You enough for what You have done for us. That we have a God who has chosen us.
• 32:05
  for salvation and didn't wait for us to be better. And God, because you don't wait for us to be better, because you didn't wait for us to be better in the past, God, your grace is not dependent on us being better in the present. All you call us to do is to come. You call us to trust in Jesus, who is the perfect display of your love. God, I pray if there are people here that don't know you, that they would come to you, that they would give their lives to this glorious gospel.
• 32:39
  God, help us to stand firm in the days ahead. We love you. We pray in the glorious name of your Son. Amen.