The Good Church Knows Jesus Wins in the End | The Church God Calls Good | Pastor Jimmy Kozy

Second Thessalonians

chapter two, verses 1 to 12.

Now concerning the coming of our Lord

Jesus Christ

and are being gathered together to him.

We ask you, brothers,

not to be quickly

shaken in mind or alarm,

either by a spirit or spoken word,

or a letter seeming to be from us,

to the effect

that the day of the Lord has come.

Let no one deceive you in any way.

For that day

will not come

unless the rebellion comes first.

And the man of lawlessness is revealed.

The son of destruction,

who opposes and exalts himself

against every so-called God

or object of worship,

so that he takes his seat

in the temple of God,

proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that

when I was still with you,

I told you these things?

And you know

what is restraining him now,

so that he may be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness

is already at work.

Only he who now restrains

it will do so until

he is out of the way.

And then the lawless

one will be revealed

whom the Lord Jesus will kill

with the breath of his mouth,

and bring to nothing

by the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one

is by the activity of Satan,

with all power and false

signs and wonders,

and with all wicked deception

for those who are perishing,

because they refuse to love the truth

and so be saved.

Therefore 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 the truth

but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Well, hey everybody,

welcome to the weekend service

here at Christ Community Chapel.

So glad you're with us today.

My name is Jimmy Kosi.

I'm one of the pastors here,

and I'm just so excited to be here.

As we continue our series from first

and second Thessalonians,

which we're calling the church

that God calls good.

And I was really excited

when Pastor Zach asked me

if I wanted to preach this weekend

a few weeks back.

And then I read the passage,

and I

began to wonder if it

was possible

that this was some sort of set up

because I was saying,

let me get this straight.

We've got a passage that God,

a man of lawlessness,

a son of destruction,

there's rebellion.

There's all kinds of things going on.

And you'd like me

to preach this passage five days

following a presidential election.

Buckle up.

Let's go.

But actually, there's

some really great things

that we can get from this passage,

and I'm excited to look into it.

Together.

There's a lot going on.

But what we want to talk about

today

is how the church that God calls good

can move to confidence because of Jesus

and Jesus alone.

So how can we as individuals

and as a church live with confidence

because of Jesus? In order to do that?

I have three points.

So if you're a note taker,

this is good to write down.

If not, it'll just give you an idea

of where we're headed today.

My first will be that,

chaos creates confusion.

Chaos creates confusion.

My second will be confusion

demands clarity.

Confusion demands clarity.

And then I'll finish with clarity.

Breeds confidence.

Chaos creates confusion.

Confusion demands clarity.

And then clarity breeds confidence.

Let's start with that first one.

Chaos. Creates confusion.

One of the things that I do as a hobby

is I coach seventh grade football.

Here in Hudson, I've been doing that.

I think I just finished up

my 12 season

coaching seventh grade football.

I will say this if you've ever wondered

if you're intelligent

or if you've ever thought

that you're intelligent,

you should try to convince

12 year old boys

to do

just about anything

in an organized fashion,

and you'll find out quickly

that you're not nearly as smart

as you think you are.

I had a situation

this past season where,

you know, I'm the head coach

and I call the offensive play,

so it was in between quarters.

And so we had the ball,

which meant

I had an opportunity

to connect with my team

to get us all on the same page.

So, you know, we're walking from

one end of the field to the other.

I'm dialing up the perfect play.

We're getting everybody organized,

and then they head out

to start the fourth quarter.

And you know, I'm

kind of walking down the sideline

just looking off, daydreaming

about how I'm going to break it

to my assistant coaches

that I can't be there next week

because, the Browns

are going to see the tape

and they're going to call me up

because of my incredible play call.

And I looked out on the field

and my team was about to snap the ball,

and all four wide receivers

were facing the wrong direction.

And so I needed to call a timeout

because I needed to get them organized.

And actually,

that's one of the things

that I've learned that as a coach,

one of the most important times to call

a timeout

is when the chaos of

what's been going on in

the game has led to confusion

on the part of my team,

and they need to be organized.

We need to recenter

and figure out what we're going to do,

and that's how

we should think of this passage

in Second Thessalonians chapter two.

If you remember last week,

one of the things

that Pastor Zach pointed out

is that not every letter

that's a part of the New Testament

has a second writing

that comes with it.

There's no second Romans

or second Ephesians,

but there is a Second Thessalonians.

And one of the reasons

there's a Second

Thessalonians is

because there were some things

that were happening within the church.

There was chaos going on

within this church

that was leading to confusion

on the part of the people

who were in the church.

And so the apostle Paul,

who wrote

the letter, needed

to pull them back

together, reorganize,

and give them some clarity in regards

to what was going on.

Let me show you.

Let's read

Second Thessalonians

chapter two, verses one and two.

Here's what it says

now concerning the coming of

our Lord Jesus Christ

and our being gathered together to him,

we ask you, brothers,

not to be quickly shaken

in mind or alarmed,

either by a spirit

or a spoken word, or a letter

seeming to be from us, to the effect

that the day of the Lord has come.

So what was happening

at this point in time

was that there were people within

the church

who were

writing letters,

or speaking or spreading information

that was leading people to believe

that the day of the Lord

had already come.

Or another way of saying that is,

the people in this church were trusting

that someday

Jesus would return

and take Christians to go

and be in heaven with him.

But people were starting to say,

hey, you've missed it.

You've missed that day.

He already came. He already returned.

You missed your opportunity

to be with him.

And so you've been,

you know, left behind.

And as you can imagine,

that would have created some chaos

and confusion within the church

because not only would

people have been concerned

for their own destiny,

they also would have been concerned

for the destiny of those around them,

for their friends, for their neighbors.

And so it had gotten to the point

where this was so rampant

that the Apostle Paul felt

it was necessary

to write another letter

to pull them back together, to clarify

and to make sure they understood

that the day of the Lord

had not yet come.

And I think our current situation is in

some ways similar to this.

What I mean by

that is we live in a culture

that I think at times

could be characterized as chaotic.

Even over this past week,

as we went through an election cycle.

There's information

flying in multiple directions,

and sometimes it's hard to tell

what's true,

what's not,

what's accurate, what's not.

You have to wait and see

and see how things play out.

It's chaotic,

but I think that even on a deeper level

than that,

our culture could be described

as confused

when it comes to spiritual things.

What I mean by that is,

if you ask five

different people on the street

what the truth about spiritual reality

is, you might get

five different answers.

If you ask five different people,

what is our purpose?

What is our meaning?

How are we supposed to live?

What's right, what's wrong?

You might get five different answers.

I think it's clear to say

that our culture

has an element

of spiritual confusion to it.

But here's the thing

when it comes to spiritual reality,

this is a high stakes thing

to have confusion about.

It was high stakes

for the Thessalonians.

If they had missed Jesus return,

the consequences of

that would be devastating.

There's a difference

between a little confusion,

which is something like,

I'm on the highway

and I'm not quite sure

which exit to get off at,

and capital C confusion.

I'm confused about what life means.

I'm confused about my purpose.

I'm confused about who is God,

what does he want from me?

What kind of relationship

am I able to have with him?

That's the kind of confusion

that I'm talking about here.

And the thing

is, I'm

not sure

we can afford

to be confused about these things.

I mean, these are questions

that it's easy

to hit the snooze button on

because tomorrow's Monday

and we've got to go back to work.

We got to go back to school.

But the reality is these are questions

that are on a deep level.

We need answers to who is God,

what does he want from us?

What kind of relationship does

he desire?

How do we know him?

Can we know him?

These questions

and this kind of confusion

demands clarity.

Which leads me to my second point,

which is that confusion

demands clarity.

Confusion demands clarity.

Let's keep reading.

In Second Thessalonians

chapter two,

I'm going to read verses

three through seven. It says this

let no one deceive you in any way.

For that day

will not come

unless the rebellion comes first

and the man of lawlessness is revealed,

the son of destruction,

who opposes and exalts himself

against every so-called God

or object of worship,

so that he takes his seat

in the temple of God,

proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that

when I was still with you,

I told you these things?

And you know

what is restraining him now

so that he may be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness

is already at work.

Only he who now restrains it will do

so until he is out of the way.

Okay, so when we read this

passage,

it actually seems incredibly unclear.

There's a lot going on there.

There's it talks

about a mystery of lawlessness,

a son of destruction,

a man of lawlessness.

It's like a grab bag

of a pop apocalyptic terminology.

And throughout the years,

people have tried

to understand this passage

in a lot of different ways.

For example, a question

that often arises,

who is the man of lawlessness?

What does that mean?

And that's a concept in

Christian theology

that's referred to as the Antichrist,

a person called the Antichrist.

And then

maybe the next logical question

is, okay,

if there's an Antichrist, who is it?

How would we be able to identify

a person like that?

As I was studying for this message,

I came across a historian

by the name of Robert Fuller,

who wrote a book

in which he chronicled the history

of Christians trying to identify

who might be the Antichrist.

In that book,

he gives a list of people who,

at one point who have thought,

who have been thought to

maybe be the Antichrist.

That includes,

Martin Luther King George the Second

Napoleon, both sides of the Civil War,

Kaiser Wilhelm,

the League of

Nations, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin,

the United Nations, Khrushchev,

the entire Soviet Union, Pope John

Paul, Ayatollah

Khomeini, Yasser Arafat,

Saddam Hussein, Henry Kissinger,

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan.

This is interesting.

Ronald Reagan's full name

is Ronald

Wilson Reagan,

which there are

six letters in each name.

So that's food for thought.

Jim Harbaugh,

step

Stephan Curry

I may have added

a few names to this list

after I read the book.

One point, Emperor Frederick

the Second and Pope Gregory

the Ninth were engaged

in concurrent camp

competing campaigns against each other,

each declaring the other person

to be the Antichrist.

And it's like the ultimate

mic drop insult.

I have

four children under the age of 11,

so I've heard some things

go back and forth.

This is like, hey, you're mean.

Oh yeah, well you're ugly.

Oh yeah, you're the Antichrist.

Saint Augustine is one of the foremost

theologians in the history

of Christianity,

and he wrote a book called City of God.

In that book,

he offers some commentary,

specifically on this passage

in the book of Second

Thessalonians, chapter two.

And what he said,

I thought was really insightful.

Here's what he said.

Saint Augustine said, I frankly confess

I do not know what he means.

And this is really my point.

It can be tempting to look at a passage

like this and think,

what we need to do

is we need to figure out

all the answers.

We need to figure out

all the information

and the answers

that are connected to this passage.

But the reality is,

the Apostle Paul

wrote this passage

to a specific group of people

at a specific point in time,

and we sit

thousands of miles away

and thousands of years later

trying to figure out

what does it have to say

that is of relevance to us.

And so one of the

things that

we need to

that I want to propose to you

is that

the Bible is clear

on things where it needs

to be clear for us,

and that on things

where it is not clear, we can trust

that God has given us what we need,

that God has given us clarity

where we need clarity

and where we don't have clarity.

We can trust him

because the truth is, God

does not give us clarity

in the form of information and answers.

God gives us clarity

in the form of a person,

and that person is Jesus.

And so if we want to know

what the nature

of our relationship

with God is like,

what what kind of relationship does

he desire?

Who who does he want us to be?

How does he care about us?

We need to look at Jesus.

The life, death, and resurrection of

Jesus gives us everything

that we need to know about who God is,

about what he wants from us,

about the type of relationship

that he desires with us.

Let me show you.

I want to

read a passage from

Hebrews chapter one.

I'm going to read verses

one through three.

Here's what it says.

Long ago, at many times

and in many ways, God

spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days

he has spoken to us by His Son, whom

he appointed the heir of all things,

through him

whom also he created the world.

Listen to this.

He is the radiance of the glory of God

and the exact imprint of his nature.

And he upholds the universe

by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins,

he sat down at the right hand

of the Majesty on high.

Well, we can draw from that

is that God has spoken to us.

God has spoken to us clearly,

and he's spoken to us fully.

And he's done, done

so through the person

and work of Jesus Christ,

through Jesus life,

death, and resurrection

as described in Scripture,

we see everything we need to know about

who God is,

about what he has for us,

about what it means

to have a relationship

with him,

and about what our eventual destiny is.

And that's so important for us,

for us to understand

that this book is not primarily

an informational document.

It is primarily a relational document

that reveals Jesus to us

and points us to him.

In order for us to see God

and to see what he wants from us.

One of the primary claims

of Christianity

is that you can know God

and that that comes through Jesus.

That's why

Jesus says,

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

He doesn't say, I show you the way.

He doesn't say,

I tell you about the way

he says I am the way.

Which, by the way,

is one of the primary differences

between Christianity

and any other faith system.

It's that God doesn't

hold out a path

or a set of principles

for us to follow, or a set of rules

that if we do it

well enough,

we might earn enough credits

to gain entry to the kingdom of heaven.

That's not how it works.

Instead, Jesus is the way to God.

He does all the obeying

and the crediting and everything

we need to do for us,

and then credits it to us.

The life, death,

and resurrection of Jesus

are what gets us into heaven,

or what gets us into relationship

with God.

And everything

we need to know about God

has been revealed to us through Jesus.

And so it's true that God

has given us clarity where we need it

and where we don't have clarity.

A passage like this one,

we can trust that we don't need it

because he's revealed to us

with clarity

through Jesus in the areas that we do.

And because of that,

because of what Jesus says about us,

we can move forward with confidence.

And that leads me to my third point,

which is that

clarity breeds confidence.

God has spoken

clearly through the life, death,

and resurrection of Jesus.

We can move through this life

with confidence,

knowing how things end

because of the life, death

and resurrection of Jesus.

There are two specific things

that I want to tell you about today.

The first is found in the passage

in Second Thessalonians.

Let me read verse eight. It says this.

And then the lawless

one will be revealed,

whom the Lord Jesus will kill

with the breath of his mouth,

and bring to nothing

by the appearance of his coming.

So the first thing we can know, amidst

all the things

that are going on in this passage,

all the terminology

in the man of lawlessness

and everything

that is not clear,

one thing is absolutely abundantly

crystal clear,

and that is that Jesus wins in the end.

That no matter

what happens in life,

that this there is a day coming

where Jesus will reduce evil to nothing

simply by his appearance

that he will destroy evil

by the word of his mouth.

And that

should give us great confidence

to know

that if we trust in Jesus,

there is a day coming where he wins.

In the end,

where everything

that's evil will be undone,

where everything that is

broken will be restored,

where every injustice will be undone,

where everything will be made right

and restored to the way it ought to be

because of him.

There's a day coming

where Jesus wins in the end.

But the second thing that we can know

is if we trust in Jesus when he wins,

we win his when can be our win.

And we know that

because of who Jesus is

and what he did,

because Jesus came

and he lived perfectly,

he did everything

we were supposed to do.

He won every time on our behalf.

And then when he went to the cross,

he lost so that we could win.

He took our sin.

He took our shame.

He took our brokenness.

He took it on himself.

And in exchange for that,

we get credit for his perfect

righteousness in the eyes of God.

If we trust in him,

his win becomes our win.

And then three days later,

he rose from the dead

to show

that he can make good

on these promises.

And not only can he,

he will make good on these promises

so we can know those two things.

Number one, Jesus wins in the end.

And number two, when he wins,

we win his when can be our win.

And that should allow us

to move forward with great confidence,

knowing that whatever life

throws at us,

whatever sadness we may experience,

whatever difficulty we may encounter,

whatever comes our way,

we can have joyful confidence

as a church and as individuals

because of Jesus.

Just makes me think of

something that happened

early on in my relationship

with my wife, Emily.

Emily and I will have been married

14 years this upcoming December,

but way back when we started

dating was right around

the time

that LeBron James

was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers

for the first time.

And I'm a huge basketball fan.

I'm a huge Cavaliers fan.

As you know, LeBron was here

and then he left us.

And then he was here another time.

And then he left us again.

And I'm promising you

I have no abandonment issues

in connection with that.

But at this point in time

Emily and I had been dating

for about 4 or 5 weeks.

So this was all new.

Everything was fresh, it was new,

and there was one night

where the Cavaliers were scheduled

to play the Los Angeles

Lakers, who at the time

their star was Kobe Bryant,

who was widely regarded

as the best player in the league.

And LeBron was supposed to be

the second best player in the league.

And so any time

these two teams matched up,

it was must see TV

because it was a huge game,

a lot of fun, two

great players and two great teams

going at it.

So there was a night

where the Cavaliers were scheduled

to play the Lakers.

On that night, Emily's

parents and her family invited me

to come up to her house

and to have dinner with them

and keep in mind,

we had only been dating

for 4 or 5 weeks.

So at this point I even I knew even

I was smart enough to know

that my fledgling relationship

could not survive

being thrown out of the nest

in the form of me telling Emily,

I'm not coming to

your parents house tonight

because I'm going to stay home

and going to watch the Cavaliers game.

So I went, I went to Emily's house.

Things went well.

It was a good night.

You know, we we had dinner.

We were talking, we were chatting.

But over time,

as the evening went along,

I began to get more and more agitated.

And the reason why

there were two things.

The first thing was I realized

Emily's parents don't have cable,

and so

there's nowhere at

this house where I'm

going to be able to watch this game.

And then the second thing is

I began to calculate in my head,

okay, what time do I need to leave

to get to my house in time

for the game to start working backward

from there?

What do I need to say

in this conversation

so that it wraps up in a timely fashion

so that I can get home

so I can see the game.

By the way, guys,

you know,

women really love it

when we are only partially engaged

in a family function

because we are

more concerned

with the outcome of a sporting event.

It works every time.

So we're sitting at dinner, and dinner

kind of wraps up and Emily says,

hey, I need to talk to you.

And she pulls me into the other room

and I kind of shuffle over slowly,

thinking that,

you know, a lot of bad

things could be happening to me

very soon.

So I'm not in a hurry to get there.

And when I get over there,

she doesn't say anything.

She sends me a card.

And I actually still have

the card today,

and I'm going to read it for you.

Here's what it says.

It's dated from December 19th, 2007,

which,

makes me realize

my life is slowly

slipping away from me.

But that's maybe a different message.

It says, Dear Jimmy,

I know this is not Christmas yet,

but I was hoping

you'd be able to take a present early.

I've so enjoyed spending time with you

and getting to know you

these past few weeks.

I wanted to do something

special for you.

Are you free to go to the Cavs

game with me tonight?

Cavs versus Lakers LeBron versus Kobe.

You and me.

Club seats.

What do you say from Emily.

And the Cavs won that game.

And I didn't even take her home.

We went straight to the jewelry store.

Here's the reason I tell you that

if you had told me

at the beginning of that night

that not only would

the Cavaliers win that game,

but I would get to be there.

And and that way

their win would be my win.

It would have completely changed

my perspective

on how that evening played out.

No matter what happened,

I would have had

a totally different mindset.

And what I need you to know

is that because of because of what God

has revealed to us

about Jesus in His Word,

that can be true

for all of us in our life.

That because of the person

and work of Jesus Christ,

we as individuals

and as a church

can move forward with joyful confidence

because we know that

whatever happens in this life,

Jesus wins in the end.

And when he wins, we win.

Let's pray together.

Father in Heaven, thank

you for this morning

and thank you for your word.

And thank you for what

you reveal to us through it,

that it's possible

to have relationship with you

because of what you've accomplished

on our behalf through your son, Jesus.

I pray that that we would trust in him.

I pray that as a church

and as individuals,

we would move forward in confidence,

knowing that your love for us

is secure in Jesus.

Knowing that our hope is secure

in Jesus.

Knowing that there is a day coming

when Jesus wins in the end.

And on that day we can win too.

It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.