1 Thessalonians 3:6-13 (Part B)

David loved the Lord.

In spite of all the things he had to go through, he loved the Lord. The scoffers come along with their bootleg fantasies about God and expect him to accept them. They're all built on superstition. In other words, there's no basis. There's no basis for the things that they say. And therefore, these false notions offer no hope. Scripture is loaded with evidence.

In fact, you've got Muslims in Israel doing everything they can to hide evidence of the Jewish faith. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Thessalonians. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.

Today on Cross-Reference Radio, pastor and teacher Rick Gaston will be teaching in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3. God will not let us go. He is not going to say, I've had it with you. You're done with me. Out.

Never do that. You are kept by the power of God. That power is love.

There's no force greater that we know of. The sovereignty of God is love. Otherwise, he'd destroy everything. He was just this power. The love of God, able to love the most wretched, able to say to a man like David after what he did with Uriah and Bathsheba, to be able to say, God has put your sin away. Love did that.

Love also welcomed the victims home also. Love also makes a way for the victim and the villain alike to be forgiven and meet in heaven, not as victim and villain, but as children of God. Now, God will never let you down. But to benefit from that statement, you have to learn how, train yourself how to no longer think in the flesh about God. You have to get above yourselves. If you think like a sinner, then God will let you down.

You'll show him the evidence. You'll stand up like Job, but you'll fall down like Job did not. Job said the Lord gives and takes away. Blessed be his name. And though he struggled with emotionally, very much struggled with what was going on, he never cursed God because he didn't look at it with the eyes of the flesh, looked at it as a spiritual man. And God will never let you off. In other words, you're a sinner.

You might as well face it. You can't stand before him and say, well, I'm not. It cost his son's blood to get you forgiven. And unless you repent, you will perish. And once you repent, it is on the strength of this understanding that God does not take justice lightly, nor does he dispense mercy foolishly.

Once we get these understandings inside of us, we become more effective as believers. Because you know when we're not effective? When we get our feelings hurt. You ever get your feelings hurt? Of course you have. Very difficult to forgive the other person. Some do because they cower.

Some do because they have the power of God in them, and others don't. And that's it. He says that we may see your face. He remembered what they looked like. This was personal. He knew them by face. It would be at least five years before he gets to see them again. And when he does, Luke writes about that in the book of Acts.

But it's a very short statement. Acts chapter 20, verse 1 and 2. After the uproar had ceased, that's in Ephesus, Paul called his disciples to himself, embraced them, and departed to go to Macedonia. That's what Thessalonica was, and Philippi, and Berea. Now when he had gone over that region and encouraged them with many words, he came to Greece. You see how quickly Luke handles that? Because he said, read the Thessalonian letter if you want to know what happened.

Want to understand the bond? The letter was already written by the time Luke comes out with Acts. And so he says, yeah, he went up to Macedonia again.

And then he goes down to Greece. That's where Athens, Corinth, and Centria, the church is there, and he ministered there. He says also in verse 10, and perfect what is lacking in your faith.

Never is the development finished, and it must be refreshed all the time. That's why we assemble as we are assembled right here, right now, to be corrected and to be perfected. It takes listening and it takes doing. If you are a Christian and you're not around other Christians, you're probably going to have a lot more spots than you need to have.

A lot more blemishes than you should, a lot more unnecessary bruises, and a lot less use of your sword if this is something you've chosen to do. But to be corrected and to be perfected is to be built up in the faith and to be stripped down in the flesh, and this is something that just doesn't stop. We all have flaws, and we have flaws even in our faith. And if anyone denies that, they have just made the point.

They have revealed the flaw in that. In verse 11, he continues, Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you. Our Bibles place no other names next to God's name with equality. You know, we practice this in other places.

Sports, for example. If you're talking about baseball legends, you don't include the bat boy. He's the bat boy.

You don't even know his name. Even if this is your son, he's the bat boy. But you take the big names, you know, the Willie Mays, the Babe Ruths, you know, you take the big guns and you compare them because they're on the same level. So we have a basic understanding of this idea. But of course with God, it is all superlative. This is much higher.

It is super. God, you don't place the bat boy name next to his. So then why is Jesus Christ, why is his name next to God the Father? Because he's equal. That's why. Eleven times in the book of Isaiah between chapters 43 and 48, God makes a declaration of divine exclusivity and it is an exceptional statement. We're just going to take four of them. I love this chapter in the Bible.

I have it all marked up and just to get to special markings so I can go to it at a glance. Isaiah 43 10, God speaking through Isaiah says, You are my witness. He's speaking to the nation Israel says Jehovah and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed nor shall there be after me. God's eternal and by eternal he does not expire. He's not a shelf life on God. Well, you know that he's only good for the next 20 billion years and after that we get another God. He's ruled that out. Verse 6 of Isaiah 44, Thus says Jehovah the king of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts.

That's his battle name. I am the first and I am the last. Besides me there is no God. Jehovah Witnesses will tell you, Well, you know, Jesus is God but he's not Almighty God. They're all backwards, messed up, everything.

They give you the time of day is wrong. That's what happens when you blow your witness like that. Isaiah 46 9, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. Now what part of this is difficult to understand?

None of it is. He's either God absolutely, there's no one on his level or anyone mentioned on his level is equal with him and then we've got to open that up a little bit. And one more from Isaiah 48 11, I will not give my glory to another.

Well, then why is Jesus up there with you on the marquee? Because he's equal, because he's God, because he's my son. I want to use the Athanasian Creed to help us all understand this a little better.

Athanasius was dealing with people who were bringing heresies into the church and he put together this creed that does it all. He says, The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. Self-existent, that's what makes him God. That's the Father, made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but begotten.

What does that mean? Brought into view. That's what Jesus has always been with the Father.

They're inseparable, always distinct. But to us he became Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. He came into view so we could begin to get our heads around God a little bit and stop making things up about him. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created, not begotten, but proceeding. It comes from God. It's not this physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit as there is with Jesus Christ.

There's a distinction there. And we use symbols such as the dove to speak of him because some of the qualities of the dove are the qualities the Holy Spirit has made himself known to us. He's gentle.

He's not a raven or a crow living off of dead things. He is a gentle spirit to those who would have him. Now Paul also says in this verse, our Lord. This appears 80 times in the New Testament, 11 in the Old Testament, 15 times in the Thessalonian letters.

That's a pretty big chunk for two little letters. Now he may not be the Lord of others, but he certainly is my Lord. If you are a Christian, you're saying the same thing. He may not be your Lord, but he is my Lord because I have let him own me. I've surrendered to him. You, if you've not surrendered to him, whether you like it or not, believe it or not, you've surrendered to Satan and not liking it and going against it is not going to make it go away. You cannot like the sun or the moon. It's going to show up tomorrow.

Of course, there's global snoring, but everybody's sleeping at the same time. But anyway, I surrender my surrender to his revelation intellectually with my brains. I listen to what he said and I say, oh, yep, I like it. That's the revelation of God, all the Bible, the scripture. How would I know anything about God unless he tells me? I mean, we're going to find it in a fig. Look at this. God's left handed.

I mean, you're not going to find anything like that. Spaghetti. Spaghetti is not going to tell you anything about it, about God, not it, God.

God has to tell us about God. I mean, what's with the statue, the fat guy with no clothes on? I mean, why?

Who is the model for that? I mean, there he is. Let's bow down. Now you say some of you might not like mocking others. I like mocking them. They're that wrong. I don't pretend, well, there's something intellectual.

No, there's not. It's stupid. And God says it. We're talking in Braverbs. He's going to mock them. Wisdom's going to say, what?

You're kidding me. You bow down to that? I offered you forgiveness of sins, guidance, love, all these, and you bowing down to that? I surrender to his authority willfully. God is not a brute.

He's not a bully. He's God. It's his prerogative to enforce his will. It is prerogative to forgive whom he will forgive. And we know how he does that because he's told us. And it's prerogative to damn who he will damn. And we know how he does that because he's told us.

It's not random. It's not like, you know, just in a bad mood. And unfortunately, it's your time for judgment. And those other Christians have so irritated me, I'm just going to take it out on you. That's not God. I surrender. My surrender to his authority is willful. My belief in his revelation is intelligent. And my surrender to his splendor is emotional. I enjoy it. I sense it. He's opened my heart up.

I sing with joy. This is a spiritual thing. It goes far above anything else anywhere else.

And it bothers me that I cannot maintain the speed. But I do believe if a car speedometer says 180, the owner should get it to 180. Oh, so I put it there. Now, a lot of people disagree with that. They're wrong.

But they have guns and badges and that makes it difficult to win the argument. Well, I believe my Bible says 180. Okay, let's pick another number.

It says infinity. I want to get it up to that. Let's start it up.

Let's see what it will do. And anyway, we should have that approach with Scripture. My surrender to his person is the best decision that I have ever made and there is no better decision I could ever make.

This is what it is to follow Jesus Christ. There are rivals to my attention to him. Yes. Who? Me. My flesh. My sinful nature. Have you ever been in the car singing hymns or songs to the Lord and the next thing you know, you're chewing out the guy next to you?

Where did you get your license from? That's the flesh. And so if anyone says no, man does not have a dual nature, they were taught that somewhere by someone who didn't like the fact.

But if you just open your eyes and look how things are, you get to it very quickly. And so are there rivals in my heart? No, not any. My heart is totally Christ. It's my flesh that gives me the hard time. Listen to Psalm 26 8. Yahweh, I have loved the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. David loved the Lord.

In spite of all the things he had to go through, he loved the Lord. The scoffers come along with their bootlaid fantasies about God and expect him to accept them. They're all built on superstition. In other words, there's no basis. There's no basis for the things that they say, and therefore these false notions offer no hope. Scripture is loaded with evidence. In fact, you've got Muslims in Israel doing everything they can to hide evidence of the Jewish faith and the things that the Jewish Bible teaches.

How do you do that? You cover up the evidence, the proof. You would think you would say, this is proof. I'm converting.

Some have, very few, but some have. And so we move on. He says to direct our way to you. It was not enough to want to go to Thessalonica. Paul needed God to let him get there.

Second Corinthians chapter one, he writes back to them. He says, Therefore, when I was planning this, did I do it lightly or the things I planned? Do I plan according to the flesh with me?

There should be yes, yes or no, no. And so Paul is saying that I don't plan things lightly. I go to the Lord. I find out what he wants me to do. Then I do it.

And if you think I just, you know, I don't feel like doing it or I don't like you. Regardless of what I'm doing, I'm taking it to the Lord. And so we continue verse 12.

And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all just as we do to you. And so love makes faith real. If you've ever met someone that can talk the faith, quote the scripture verses, but is a mean little, boy, I don't like that guy. But he knows the Bible, but he can't do any of it. He's a philosopher of the faith. We're not philosophers.

Philosophy takes guesses at things and goes through life, I think. And the Christian goes with, Thus says the Lord, I know. That's why when Christ came and he spoke, it says in the end of the Sermon on the Mount, they said that they were struck by him. Never did anyone speak. He did not speak like the Pharisees or the scribes. He spoke with authority because he knew what he was saying.

He wasn't guessing about. He had been there. And so this love allows us to disagree with brothers in the faith and sisters in the faith on non-essential issues and still work together. And so, again, love is abstract, but work is a concrete part of love. Verse 13, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with his saints. And so, there again, we find that the Lord Jesus Christ is mentioned there with the Father as equal because he is as we have discussed. And he says, so he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father. The Old Testament prophets, they looked for Messiah to come.

He came. They missed him, as we've discussed through this letter, because of rabbinical Judaism versus Judaism based on the law and the prophets and the writings. They threw those away and they began concentrating on what the universities in Jehovah's name was teaching, the rabbinical schools. And unfortunately, there are many doctrines in Christianity that you have to be taught by somebody and they're wrong. You would never get these things reading the scripture, but you go off somewhere and you learn it and you come back with this twisted view that is nothing more than leaven. And unfortunately, many Christians couldn't even identify a heretic if he was preaching heresy to them. And that's why Jehovah's Witnesses are so successful, because one of their moves is to make you feel ashamed at your ignorance and yet blessed by their presence, which offers you knowledge. And they usually start, have you ever wondered why, you know, I wonder why you people keep coming back to my house when last time one just came up to my house around Halloween, National Weenie Day. Anyway, I said, look, you're Jehovah's Witnesses, I'm a pastor, I will never agree with what you're speaking and it's a waste of both of our time.

Thank you. Oh, I didn't say thank you. I'm very careful how I speak to them.

I don't give them anything. I'm not rude, but I'm like, ready to be. And just, Lord, just say go. He doesn't, he doesn't. Anyway, so he said, well, let me just ask you this.

What do you think about Halloween? I said, I'm against it. Well, would you like some material?

No. Would you like material for my sermon from Jehovah? Well, why don't you just call hell up and ask Satan to tell me what I should say in the pulpit? Now, some of you again may say, no, that's harsh. Look, hell's going to be a lot more harsh than anything I can say. I'm just tired of people covering up truth in the interest of some civility.

There's nothing civil about letting people believe in lies when you have the ability to address it. And there may be someone sitting. You came in here thinking all these things were cool. You think, well, everybody's doing a homosexual thing.

It must be fine. Then you're a fool. God has said the fool has said in his heart there is no God.

Well, you say, well, I believe there's a God. Well, which one? What's his name? What's he like?

Where did you get him from? Are you following an imposter? Because it's going to mean everything to you one day. And you will not be able to say I went to Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville and they made Satan very comfortable over there. May you never be able to say that about us. Well, we have to finish this verse.

And so let's go forward. At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, this is the hope and the expectation of better things that the early Christians never lost sight of. Yet today they're Christians they don't want to talk about end times. They don't want to talk about prophecy and a rapture. You may not know these Christians because you may run in circles with Christians who are like minded, but they are out there. In 1 Thessalonians, every chapter deals with the coming of Jesus Christ. The second letter, the first two chapters do and the third has no reference.

So I just want to briefly go over some of these. Why not speak of a better hope in the coming of Christ in this degenerate society we live in? John writing his first letter talking about we seeing Christ and being like him, he says, and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as Jesus is pure. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 10. We read, wait for the son from heaven whom he raised from the dead. In chapter 2 verse 19, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming. In this chapter, chapter 3 verse 13, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.

I'll be in that number and so will I hope all of you. Chapter 4 verse 15, the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are dead. It says asleep, it's a euphemism, but he's saying that the dead who've died in Christ, they will receive their resurrected bodies first and then those who are raptured. It is order in God's house and that is the order of business. 1 Thessalonians 5 23 says, preserve blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ every chapter. Now if we didn't have chapter divisions, you still would walk away saying, you know, he talks about the coming of Christ a lot. And that's why we've entitled this study, The Coming of Christ. Because this is what Paul was sharing with these persecuted rookie Christians. The word coming is usually translated coming, but it is actually presence, another compound word in the Greek.

In para, meaning alongside, thus to be alongside of someone, so to be present with all of his saints. I'm going to end with a quote from F.B. Meyer. F.B. Meyer was a man of God in England and London, preached a great ministry.

And when G. Campbell Morgan came to London, F.B. Meyer says, you know, I was a little nervous. Thought I was going to lose my flock and God added to the church and Morgan did well too. And there's always enough to go around. And if you're a pastor, those things stick out because, of course, you're defensive of the church. Yes, you're the shepherd and you want to go at anything that goes at the church. But also you're you're human and susceptible to envy and jealousy and insecurity and probably more in ministry than in your own life. And when you are encouraged by such experiences in others, those things tend to lose their power and Christ gains power. So I close with this quote by F.B.

Meyer. He says, I do not believe in sanctification. I believe in the sanctifier. I do not believe in holiness. I believe in the Holy One. He's simply defining the truer meaning of the word.

He's going a little deeper. Of course, we use and he did to the word sanctification and the holiness of the saints. But he's going deeper and saying it's Jesus. That's the one. Take him out of the picture and you have no such thing as sanctification and holiness.

You have judgment. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of First Thessalonians. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our Web site, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app as well. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of First Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.