Pastor Dana Kidder preaching from II Thessalonians 2:16-17 at Redemption Bible Church in Bellefontaine, Ohio.
Redemption Bible Church
A Prayer of Blessing
That hymn come now found of every blessing, that was written in about 1757 by an English pastor by the name of Robert Robinson. He was born in 1735, his father died when he was just five or six years old. And so in 18th century England during that time, there was little in the way of any kind of social welfare system. So that meant that he had to go to work while he was very young, without a father to guide him and provide that much needed discipline. Robinson fell in with a rough crowd. By the time he was 17, he was running the streets of London in gangs, obviously not carrying it all about anything even remotely spiritual. One day the gang he was running with harassed a drunken gypsy woman, and pouring liquor on her, they demanded that she tell their fortunes for free. She pointed her finger at Robert Robinson and told him that he would live to see his children and grandchildren, and that did something to Robinson. He'd later recounted thinking, "If I was going to live to see my children and grandchildren, I had to change my way of living. I could not keep on living like I was then." A few nights after that he was still considering that prophecy or that fortune, the fortune teller's words, and yet only kind of halfway serious, he decided to go to a tent meeting to hear the famous Calvinist Methodist preacher and evangelist George Whitfield. He was worried that his friends would think he looked weak, and so he suggested that the boys go with him. Let's go and mock and heckle the gathering. Let's go laugh at these deluded Methodists that night Whitfield preached on Matthew 3, verse 7, "You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come." The teenage Robinson, he left that meeting with feelings of dread. It was under a deep sense that Whitfield was preaching just to him directly at him alone. He would admit later, however, it wasn't until a few years later, around the age of 20, that he finally repented and discovered the true peace of God. The transformation was so radical that he immediately set out to become a preacher himself. Even after his conversion, he wrote a letter to George Whitfield, and he told him that one of the things that struck him that night as he listened to his preaching was the joy and contentment that he saw on the faces of the other people in that tent, a joy that he envied. Two years later, in around 1757, he wrote that hymn, which expressed the joy that he found in this new faith. I want you to listen to how he originally wrote the second verse, which is unfortunately different than what is in our hymnals. The first verse says, "Come the fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing. Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount. I'm fixed upon it. Mount of God's unchanging love." And then the second verse is this, "Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by thy help I'm come, and I hope by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood. Here I raise mine Ebenezer." Do you know what that means? You probably have an image in your head when you think of Ebenezer. That word is from a few places in Scripture, but specifically 1 Samuel 7 verse 12. After the Lord had helped Israel defeat the Philistines, we read this, then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mespa and Shen and called its name Ebenezer, where he said, "Till now the Lord has helped us." And Ebenezer is a stone of remembrance. It is a monument to God's deliverance and his protection. Why is it important to remember? We see this frequently in the Old Testament when the people of Israel were wandering the wilderness or traveling to the Promised Land. God would help them in some way, and Moses or one of them would set up a stone of remembrance. They'd build a monument. Why is it important to remember? Why today do we make social media posts that say, "Never forget about certain events?" Consider the Lord's Supper. Jesus commanded us. This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. At the end of the Apostle Paul's life, he instructed his disciple, his protege Timothy. In 2 Timothy chapter 2, he says, "Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel." And then just a few verses later, he instructs Timothy in his own shepherd, in his own pastoring, to remind them of these things. That is, he was to remind the church, even specifically of the creed from the verses immediately preceding that. Remind to the church of this, the saying is trustworthy. For if we have died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. So there are clearly things that we are called to remember. But aren't we supposed to leave the past behind? Isn't that what Paul says in Philippians chapter 3, verse 13 says, "But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead?" Aren't we to forget the past? Well, the question is, what exactly is Paul forgetting? Are we to forget the past as well? Do we forget all that is behind? Well, Paul specifically was forgetting his own self-righteous resume, his own heritage, as he explained in the previous verses before that. But he is decidedly not forgetting the work of Jesus Christ. In fact, it's precisely because of the work of Jesus Christ that he can look forward to anything. Listen to the next verse. So Paul had said, "One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." So I ask you today, what is the danger in not forgetting your past self-righteousness and instead remembering Christ in his finished work? What is the danger of not straining forward and pressing on with our eyes on the upward call of God in Christ Jesus? Last Sunday, I quoted in my sermon, I quoted Steve Lawson, I probably quoted him dozens of times. He's a teaching fellow with Ligonier Ministries, a regular speaker at the Shepherd's Conference, a Grace Community Church where John MacArthur is the pastor. In fact, Steve Lawson has filled the pulpit for John MacArthur, I think more than anyone else in recent years. He's also leading a Doctor of Ministry program at Master Seminary. In this past Thursday, the elders of his church in Dallas announced that he had been indefinitely removed from all ministry due to an inappropriate relationship with a woman other than his wife. He's 73 years old. He's been in ministry for something like 50 years. He's written 33 books and has preached at conferences and churches all over the world. Let me just say this, there is a grave danger in forgetting the wrong things of the churches that -- one of the churches that Robert Robinson, the author of that hymn, one of the churches that he pastored in 18th century England, the 1700s in England, had upwards of a thousand members. That's incredible for the time. But for some unexplained reason, or at least a reason that seems to be lost in history, he left the ministry and faded into obscurity. Years later, it was revealed that Robinson, who had authored the line that we just sang, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, that he had in fact wandered from the God he loved. One author picks up the story and says this, "In a spiritually backslidden condition, Robert was traveling in a stagecoach one day. His only companion was a young woman unknown to him. In the providence of God and not realizing who it was that she spoke with, the woman quoted, come the fount of every blessing, saying what an encouragement had been to her." And tries he might. Robinson could not get her to change the subject. She asked him what he thought of the hymn that she was humming. He responded, "Madam, I'm the poor, unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds if I had them to enjoy the feelings I had been." Gently, she replied, "Sir, the streams of mercy are still flowing." He was deeply touched by that. As a result of that encounter, he repented. His fellowship with the Lord was restored through the ministry of his own hymn and a Christian's willing witness. Second Thessalonians 2, we're going to read just verses 16 and 17 this morning. Second Thessalonians 2, the last couple verses of this chapter 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." Let's pray again. We need God's help. Father, I pray that we would forget the right things, that we would forget our own self-righteousness, our own, I don't know, striving to be like Christ on our own, and that we would remember the truth, that we would remember the finished work of Christ as we strain forward to the upward call, to the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, as we strain forward to become Christ-like, that we would not forget, that we have been chosen and called redeemed by Jesus Christ. We pray this in His name, amen. So last week I mentioned as we went through the previous verses, the indicative and the imperatives. So we can say because of what God has done, chosen you and called you, we therefore must respond by standing firm and holding fast. But the imperatives or the commands of this epistle of this letter here of 2 Thessalonians, so far they're all kind of directly related to the good news of Christ's coming, or more specifically to His second coming, as Paul is instructing them, and really to the spiritual war that we face, not just within our own hearts, but even as we face opposition to Christianity around us. And the commands are simple, stand firm, hold fast, those are simple commands. I don't mean that they're easy to obey, that's not what I mean by simple, rather I mean that they're simply put. Stand firm, hold fast, that's easy enough to understand. But we very much need God's help following those commands. Even those Christians that we might consider to be giants of the faith who walk among us, they have a hard time obe- they have a hard time obeying these things. And so we must not think too highly of ourselves. Well, the message of the first couple chapters of 2 Thessalonians is something like this. If we were to summarize the first two chapters, it would be something like, in light of Christ's impending return, stand firm in your faith and hold fast to the promises of God, even in the midst of opposition and suffering. And Lord willing, next week when we come to chapter 3, we will see the Apostle Paul issue some very practical and very specific commands in light of all of this. But first he prays for them. He prays for them here in these two verses. And this prayer is really in the form of a blessing. In fact, even though it's not at the end of the letter, it's really a benediction, a prayer of blessing. And in this benediction, in this prayer of blessing, Paul looks back and he looks forward. He looks back to what God has done and he looks forward on what Paul is confidently praying that God will do. So looking back, look again at verse 16. Now may our Lord Jesus himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, stop there. There's a contrast here in these verses. We saw last week we looked at verses 13 to 15. We saw there that God had chosen them and called them and thereby he enables them to stand firm and hold fast. But now here is what Jesus himself and God our Father has already done. See the comfort that is available to these shaken and frightened Thessalonian believers, the saints here at this church, it rests, it rests not in their ability to obey the command to stand firm and hold fast, hold fast to the traditions that Paul has taught them. But rather it rests in the divine power of Christ and God, the Father. But even beyond that contrast there between these two passages, notice who Paul is directing his prayer toward. Now of course he's talking to his readers, so he's telling them what he's praying for them essentially. So we have to kind of interpret this, but his prayer is directed toward both God the Father and God the Son. Look at it again, verse 16. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, he's praying that God would God the Father and God the Son would do these next things. So just think about that for a second. It's directed toward both. What does that teach us? Look for starters, one thing this does is affirms the deity of Jesus Christ. Now as Christians we understand this. This is sort of like Christianity 101, that Jesus Christ is God, God the Son. In fact you can't be a Christian if you don't believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. If you don't believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God, then you're kind of categorically speaking, you're not a Christian. There's no space for agreeing to disagree on that. But you will regularly meet people who will say that Jesus is something less than deity, but here Paul implicitly claims that Jesus has the power, authority and ability to bring comfort and hope as he's praying for. And let me tell you a secret, dead saviors can't do that. Dead saviors cannot bring comfort and hope. Dead saviors cannot answer our prayers. So we may be inspired by great men of history, right? Your churchills, your washington's, your urnhearts, but it's not them that strengthen us, right? It's maybe the memory of them or our own memories of them, our feelings about them. But here Paul is praying for Jesus Christ himself to work in us, which he can do because he is the risen and ascended Son of God. He has the power and ability to do this because he's alive and he is God. And we also learn here that it's okay to pray to Jesus. Now normally when we pray, we pray to God the Father. In fact, Jesus taught us to address our prayers to the Father, right, in the, what we call the Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6-9, "Pray then like this," Jesus said, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." Jesus himself prayed to the Father. John chapter 17 opens with, "He lifted his eyes to heaven and said, 'Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.'" Indeed, in the garden, on the night that he was arrested, Jesus prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless not my will, but yours be done." Jesus prayed during his ministry, Jesus taught us to pray to the Father and he himself prayed to the Father. And we also know that the risen and ascended Jesus Christ continues to go to the Father on our behalf. So Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 tells us that he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. That verse says that Jesus Christ is powerful to save. And also don't forget Romans chapter 8, verses 26 and 27, it says, "Likewise the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses, for we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." So normally we pray to the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. That means that because Jesus is God, he's not the Father, but he is God. He is very God of very God, we could say, because Jesus is God the Son, we are right to pray to him. And in fact even to call upon his name, for everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's the promise. And when we call on him, he will answer because all authority has been given him. We read for example in Matthew 28, "He will bless his people, and so that we can clearly see his divinity, his loving kindness, his sacrifice. Jesus has authority in heaven." And so in his own right, Jesus blesses his own people and he does it himself. Paul says here. And yet he doesn't do it alone. I'm going to come back in a moment to what God does to the verbs here, but for now I just want to point out that they're singular. So look at this again, the second part of verse 16, "Who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace." Those verbs loved and gave, those are in the singular. We don't kind of see this in English because we don't have it that way, but they're singular. So it could be translated something like this, "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, may he comfort us, may he establish us." Paul is clearly connecting the Father and the Son as one. He's not blending them, he's not confusing them, he's just simply acknowledging the equal honor due to them, or I should actually say due to him as God. Some of this is the mystery of the Trinity, which we will acknowledge is hard to understand. Notice that Paul says God, our Father, our Father, Jesus told us to address him this way, our Father who art in heaven. Because God is our Father, we actually can expect, or rather we understand that we have been given the right to expect certain blessings from him. So John 1 verse 12, "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 to 7, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons, and because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father." So you're no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir threw God. Do you understand what the gospel does? I point this out every once in a while, but I want to make sure that we know this. When he says, "Son" there, in New Testament times, the daughters, they had no rights of inheritance. So he's giving his children the same rights that the sons have. That's what this is saying. We are no longer slaves, but we are children of God, heirs, even. So when I say that we've been given the right to expect certain blessings from him, I don't mean demand certain blessings as if we're owed a blessing. Rather, I mean that because he is our father, we can confidently expect that he will love us and give us what we need. That might not be what we expect or what we think we need, but he will give us what we need, and he knows what we need. This is why we can pray with confidence, give us this day our daily bread, because our father loves us. In fact, he so loves us that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Or to put it another way, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. God so loved that he gave. Don't miss that. Our father so loved us as his children brought us into his family, made us not slaves, but heirs, heirs of the promises of God, heirs of eternal life. There's more because the phrase gave us eternal comfort here. That's very specific. Listen, I want to read a chain of verses here, starting in John 14, 16. Catch the thread through this chain from several different places. Jesus says to his disciples in John 14, 16, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter to be with you forever." In another place and because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, father," and another. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. And therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God who gives his spirit to you. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the source of our good hope because he is the guarantee of our salvation until we acquire possession of it, until we see God face to face. Listen again. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the one who comforts us. The word there is paraclete, that word for comforter or helper. Either word is an appropriate translation. It is the Holy Spirit who comforts us and it's an eternal comfort and a good hope through grace. As we consider these things, we also need to remember that Paul could have said that the Lord has given us knowledge. He could have said that the Lord has given us truth as we battle the lies of the false teachers that has been sort of a constant theme through this, at least through this chapter. He could have said that he has given us knowledge, he has given us truth, and those would both be correct. He has given us those things, but the battle that we are engaged in is not merely intellectual. It's not an argument that we're going to win, right? It's not simply a battle of ideas, it's spiritual. We are engaged in a spiritual war and God in his grace has given us the ultimate helper and comforter, the ultimate paraclete, the Holy Spirit. And this comfort that we have is the only fitting antidote to the anxiety and fear that grips not only the Thessalonians as they face all kinds of persecution and opposition, but even those of us who are living here in this present evil age. It's the only fitting antidote to that anxiety and fear that we can feel. Whatever it is that triggers your anxiety and fear, scrolling, watching the news, thinking about your family, your friends, whatever it is, we have a comforter and it's the only fitting antidote. But remember what he's already done. Verse 16 is looking back, he has loved us, he has given us eternal comfort, and he has given us good hope through the grace of Jesus Christ. He has done all of those things. We must remember that. We must keep that in the forefront of our mind. That should be our prayer. But what about tomorrow? How does Paul pray looking forward, looking ahead? Well, this is verse 17. Let me read both verses again. Now, may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, here's the prayer request. Comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. May he do those things. May God the Son and God the Father do those things, comfort and establish. So the first part of the prayer looks back at what God has done in Christ through the Spirit. And so now we see the actual request, the content of the prayer, and it's summed up in those two words, comfort and establish. May the Lord Jesus himself and God our Father comfort your hearts. This is not some kind of vague faint hope. Paul is confidently praying that God will do this because he is our Father. He has a strong sense of fulfillment in this because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Paul knows for certain that God will answer this prayer. Paul is sure that the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father will comfort the shaken minds and fearful hearts of the Thessalonians saints. Do you know why Paul could pray with such confidence? Do you know why we can pray with such confidence? Because of the promises. Listen again to Jesus' words from John chapter 14. He said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another comforter to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. The Holy Spirit is our comforter. He is our helper, and so we understand that part of this prayer itself is just simply an encouragement. God will do this. He will do this. He will comfort us no matter what we face. This is why so many of the martyrs of centuries gone by could go to the stake or the whatever their, however they would kill them, singing hymns. Often during the English Reformation, the 1600s when things were in such turmoil in the British Isles, so many of the British pastors that were being burned at the stake would go quoting Psalm 51, Have mercy on me, Oh God, according to your unfailing love. They could go with confidence, not with fear. The Holy Spirit is our comforter and our helper, and we can even say greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. Now a synonym for comfort here is encourage. We can actually translate this either way. So we understand that part of the prayer itself is that encouragement. So consider your need for these two things. Consider your need, even today, for comfort and encouragement. Did you notice, do you notice what is to be the home so to speak of this divine comfort? Where is this divine comfort and encouragement to live? In our hearts, in our hearts it says, comfort your hearts. Finding comfort or encouragement anywhere else is vanity. Now I want to be clear, it's not just from within. We're not looking to our hearts for comfort. God is putting it there. We are praying for God to comfort us deep down and fully and completely. That's what He means by hearts. And finding any kind of comfort or encouragement anywhere else is vanity. So we're not going to find the comfort of God in a comfortable house. A comfortable job or a comfortable marriage. God's comfort cuts through all of the cares of this world and cuts right to the heart. That's another reason why we say that the Holy Spirit uses God's word and the Holy Spirit and God's word go hand in hand. Hebrews chapter 4, for the word of God is living and active sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart and no creature is hidden from His sight. But we are all naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. The Holy Spirit and God's word go right to the heart. But it doesn't stop there, keep reading. Hebrews chapter 4 continues, the very next verse says, "Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. But we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin, let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father comfort our hearts, and may He also establish them. May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father comfort and establish our hearts. May He strengthen them. May He shore up your hearts foundation in every good work and word." Here's a little clue. Comfort, that looks back over what Paul has written already. When Paul prays for comfort, he's looking back to what God has promised, what God has done. We find comfort in the promises of God. We do not know what lies in the future except for the promises that God has made. We know that Christ will reign for eternity. We have hope in Christ, but we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow when you get to work. The comfort is found in the promises of God. The establishing is Paul looking forward to what he's about to write in chapter 3 actually. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I want to ask this question. It's going to seem a little out of left field maybe. Why were we even saved? Why would God choose and call any of us? Why would God save any of us? Of course, the big answer is for the glory of God, but there are tangible reasons in this present life as well. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10 says, "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Again here, verse 17, "Comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word." So this prayer of blessing here is for a lifestyle of, I guess we could call, practical godliness with works and words that flow and follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, that are Christ-like. We were created. We were saved for these things. That's why He saved us. So consider this. Paul has been instructing us through really both of these letters as we've studied first and second Thessalonians. He has been instructing us about things concerning a cosmic clash of good and evil. He's been talking of the king's triumphal return to judge the quick and the dead. And yet in light of that, Paul is saying that what really matters right now is the way that we live before God, doing all kinds of good works and saying godly words. Whether that's the gospel itself or whatever is profitable for building one another up. And I want to point out that this is what Jesus did as well. After teaching of the coming judgment in the book of Matthew, chapter 24 really, Matthew then tells in chapter 25 a series of parables that end with an exhortation to live out the implications of the gospel. Because of what Christ has done, here's now how you should live. Because of what Christ is going to do, here's how you should live now. Listen to the exhortation that Jesus gives. It's Matthew 25, I'm just going to read part of it, verses 34 to 36. Then the king will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." Then in verse 40 he says, "And the king will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it for me. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them," Ephesians says. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father will comfort our hearts and strengthen and establish them that we may be obedient to do the good works that He has called us to do, whatever those are. The one and others of the Scripture as we are conformed to the image of Christ and love one another and meet one another's needs as we hold fast to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers as we meet one another's needs. Our greatest need today, our greatest need is to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to be conformed to the image of Christ. And here's the promise from this prayer. He is faithful. He will do this. He will conform us to the image of Christ. Hold fast and stand firm because God is faithful. He will do it. Let's pray. Father, you have loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope through the grace that you have so richly poured out on us. You have not left us alone but have left us with the helper, the comforter, the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our salvation until we acquire possession of Him, until we see you face to face, until we are able to sit at Jesus's table and eat the mirrored supper of the Lamb with Him in eternity. So we rejoice in this. We also ask Lord that You would comfort our hearts and establish them in every good work and word. Whatever those works and words are to be, Lord, as we train up our children, as we share a reason for the hope that is within us, as we are so reminded and respond soberly and truthfully to the things around us that are trying so hard to trip us up. Father, that we may be comforted and established in Jesus Christ. That is our prayer today. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.