Final DOS and DON'TS

Let's take a look at the Word of God today. Let me read for us again the first five verses, and then we're going to skip ahead to verse 13 and finish the chapter.

So listen now as I read for us from the Word of God.

As soon as I find it. Beginning in verse 1. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the Word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored

as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

And we have confidence in the Lord about you that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

Verse 13. As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.

Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times, in every way the Lord be with you all.

I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness in every letter of mine. It is the way I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Will you pray with me once more? Father, we thank you so much for the gifts that you've given to us here in our church, Lord, for the young, for the old, for new life, Lord.

We love crying babies around here so much. Lord, we love those who are not able to be with us, who are at home maybe watching because they are weak, they are infirm.

And so, Lord, build your church even as you build this local manifestation, this family that we have here at Redeemer. We thank you for the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, that makes this church possible.

And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.

We, as in my wife and I, have now moved three children off to college. I created a collage of moving to college. That was pretty clever, right?

Collage, college. So we just sent off. It's a little different after you take them the first time. Those of you who have done this, you know, like you pack up a van or a truck or a trailer or whatever it is.

If it's, you know, well, I won't say who in my family. But you pack up that car and there's lots of tears. And then you get to where we are now that we've got two graduated.

And we sent off our third born for his third year, his junior year. And we were like, see ya. And he fits everything in a little tiny car. So if you've ever done that or if you're younger, let me give you younger people a chance to connect with this.

If you've ever, like, dropped off the baby for babysitting for a weekend away maybe. Or if you've taken a kid to camp, right? Any of you taking kids to camp?

You know what it's like. For campers, you're like, don't forget to brush your teeth every day. Or in some cases, change your underwear. Do change your underwear daily.

You do have bug spray, right? I remember when we were taking our kids to college, it was like, you do understand how to use the alarm on your phone, right?

And you have a backup. Or make sure you do eat fruits and vegetables once in a while. And don't drink too much caffeine at night. And don't forget to call us.

Which, well, sometimes they do. Well, the reason I bring this up is because I think about it like taking a kid to college. When the first time you leave them, you have those final words.

And often those final words end up being a list of some do's and don'ts spoken in love. And in many ways, you could say, it's not a perfect parallel, but you could say that's kind of what the Apostle Paul is doing here in the last chapter of this short letter.

He's got some final words. And in them, we hear today, we're hearing some final do's and don'ts for this young church. He can't be with them.

He may not see them for a very long time. And so in the meantime, he wants to leave them with some points of advice. But this is not just a parent.

This is the Apostle Paul. He's inspired. And so these points of advice are coming with authority so that these final thoughts that Paul offers have a timelessness and a universal application and relevance for not just this particular people in Thessalonica in the first century,

but for all of God's people everywhere, including us. Now, if you remember from last week, again, we've already taken the center part of the chapter.

Paul dealt with the biggest topic that was a concern for him, and that was the topic of idleness. But today, we're going to focus on the first five verses and then the last six verses.

And we could really kind of lay it out like this. It's a bit simple and cute, but it'll work, hopefully. The first five verses give us the do's.

Do these things. And then the last six verses give us the don'ts. So let's get started. Let's kick things off with the do's, since that's what Paul starts out with in the very first verse in verse 1.

Here's the first thing to do. If you're taking notes, do, number one, is this. Do pray for the speed and honor of the gospel. Do pray for this, for the speed and the honor of the gospel.

So, verse 1, finally, brothers, pray for us. And how are they to pray for Paul and Silas and Timothy, his companions? Pray, he says, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as has happened among you guys.

You, Paul says, are our fruit. You, Thessalonian believers, are our success. Because when the word of the gospel sped ahead and got to you through that vision God gave me of that man of Macedonia, Acts chapter 16, you guys received it.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

You let that word get implanted in you. And in that way, you honored it. And that's what we want to see continue happening throughout this Roman Empire, Paul says, as more and more doors are opened for the word to be able to speed ahead and be honored.

Now, it's interesting. Paul uses an analogy here. It's a metaphor. And quite frankly, it's one that he uses a lot. It's the metaphor of a race, right?

And literally what it is is a foot race, a competitive foot race. And scholars note that he does this a lot, especially when he's sitting and writing from a city like Corinth.

This is Greece, ancient Greece. Some of you are familiar with games, the Olympic games. In Corinth, they had a version of the Olympics called the Ismian Games for the Ismian Peninsula.

And so it stands to reason that Paul was taking in a lot of, you know, he's going off to watch football games kind of thing. He was watching local sporting events.

And so he had these metaphors, these images in his mind. And he says, that's what I want for the word of God to do. I want it to race. I want the gospel of Jesus Christ to speed ahead and win.

I want it to be honored. I want to see Jesus and his work take first place in people's lives. For the word to speed ahead and be honored to win, to win them.

Other places Paul uses racing metaphors. Philippians chapter 3, verse 14. What does he say there? He says, I myself press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:14

Does it again over in a letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 4. We hear Paul, and this is later at the end of his life in ministry. He doesn't have long left.

2 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

And what he says is in verses chapter 4, verse 7, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I've kept the faith. And Paul urges his fellow believers, join me in praying for this to happen, as it happened with you.

Pray that it will happen in other places where God opens a door, like he did in Athens, like he is right now for me here in Corinth, like Paul hopes it will be in Rome.

Paul wants to see the gospel honored everywhere. And remembering what we said a moment ago about how these words of advice, this first do here from Paul, is not only intended for an ancient group of believers, it's intended for us too.

Let me ask you, as a Christian, do you pray like this? Are you praying for the speed of the gospel, for it to win the race into people's hearts?

For a wider reception, do you pray that God will open doors in your neighborhood? Do you pray that God will open hearts at your place of work?

So that the work of Jesus and his offer of forgiveness will be honored. You should. Because prayer is the power for that. Prayer is the fuel for that.

Scholar Greg Beal says that prayer is the power that makes the weapon of the gospel effective. Prayer is an effective weapon in the Christian arsenal.

So that's our first do from Paul. But right away, without even breaking sentence, he's on to a second one in verse 2. Verse 2, the second do is this.

Do pray for the protection of gospel workers. Pray for the protection of gospel workers. You know, it's interesting, but later on in verse 15, Paul will even make mention of an enemy, and he'll say that, hey, a straying brother is not an enemy.

They're a brother to be warned. But that reminds us that there really are enemies. There really are enemies of the gospel. Wicked people who are dangers to the work of the gospel, and especially, particularly, to gospel workers themselves.

And although our text does not say this, and it's only really my personal opinion, I would venture to say that the danger level for a gospel worker increases depending on how much time they're engaged in gospel work.

And so what that means is, for people who are full-time gospel workers, like Paul and his companions, they face the greatest danger. Well, those who would sit back and be more consumers in the faith are probably not as much of a threat from the enemy's perspective.

And as for these wicked men, these evil men, Paul mentions in verse 2, these men who don't have faith and who are vehemently opposed to the spread of the gospel, we learn a couple of things about them.

We know a couple of things to be true about them. First thing we know is this, is that they don't play fair. You realize that? The enemy doesn't fight fair.

They don't fight virtuously, whether it's Satan through the Jews that were opposing Paul in every city that he went to, getting him run out of every synagogue.

You know, it wasn't very long. He'd maybe get a week or two or maybe three, and then the Jews would run him out of the synagogue. That was Satan behind that.

It happened also in Gentile context, where there would be sometimes a mob that would get foamed up and start rioting and chase Paul out of the city under threat of his life.

This is exactly what happened at the city of Ephesus. We read about it in Acts chapter 19. No sooner had Paul established a church in Ephesus, he was even teaching daily in a secular lecture hall, the lecture hall of Chironis, having a huge impact in the city.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

People were getting saved and, you know, renouncing their idols and their witchcraft. He was so successful in Ephesus that it upset the local tradesmen, the silversmiths who made their business making idols.

They weren't selling any more idols. They got really upset and were told that they riled up the whole city. They were so mad that Paul was making converts, causing them to lose business, that they came to a point where they rushed into the local amphitheater.

We read that Paul in Acts actually wanted to appear before the mob, but the local Christians were like, no, you can't do it. These people will tear you to pieces.

You know, Paul later reflected on that experience in Ephesus, and he wrote about it when he was writing to the Corinthians. Here's what he said.

1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 32, he says, If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? It's funny.

1 Corinthians 15:32

Scholars are like, when did Paul face lions? When was he thrown to the lions? He wasn't. This is what he's talking about. He's talking about Demetrius the silversmith and the local amphitheater where they were so angry and so enraged they wanted to tear them apart.

Paul calls them wild beasts. There are times when wicked people become so unreasonable, so frenzied and violent toward God's people that it's like a senseless wild beast is targeting you.

And sadly, it still happens in parts of our world today. Parts of Pakistan. You can read some of the reports coming out of northern Nigeria.

The enemies of Christ don't play fair. They don't obey laws. They falsely accuse. They intimidate. They kidnap. They attack. And sometimes they even kill.

That's the first thing we know about wicked and evil men. They don't play fair. And the second thing we know about these people who lack faith is that it's not just them who's opposing us.

They are working in the service of someone. A dark prince. The prince of the power of the air. Paul refers to him here as the evil one, Satan.

And so Paul prays and by his own example also encourages us to pray today for the protection of those who do the work of the gospel. And in verse 3, he reminds us that the Lord is faithful.

He's faithful. He says this, He will establish and guard you against the evil one. Of course, we know that sometimes that doesn't always mean that we escape.

Being guarded and established sometimes means that there are martyrs who meet their eternal reward. But as Jesus himself once said, don't be afraid of those who can kill the body and after that can't do anything to you.

Fear the one who is in heaven. But pray for the protection of gospel workers. You know, a lot of you tell me this on a regular basis that you're praying for me.

Do you know how much that means to me, to us, as church staff? Sometimes someone up here will pray publicly representing all of you and pray for us.

That is a big deal. Well, I don't take that lightly. We should pray for our ministry workers here at home. We should pray for our ministry workers abroad, for our missionaries.

whether it's someone doing cross-cultural work in Chicago or it's someone over in the Middle East or someone in modern-day Thessaloniki, we have someone there.

We should pray for our missionaries. They share the good news of salvation that's found in Jesus. They're targets. We should pray for our overseers.

We should pray for our new regional director, Kevin Moore. Put him on your prayer list. We should pray for our president, also relatively new, Rodney Arnold.

He's been here to visit us. We should pray for people who do the full-time work of the gospel. And you know what? Even I would say pray for gospel workers from afar.

You say, well, what's that? I'm talking about people who are a great benefit to the church by their leadership, by their writing, by speaking at conferences on sometimes controversial issues.

I know for me, in particular, I've been greatly helped by a man named Christopher Yuan, who's an expert on issues of LGBTQ. He's an expert because he was on the inside living a sinful life for many years.

He's got a powerful testimony. And now, he travels the country. He's come to the Missionary Church National Conference and spoke. He's come to this city and spoke, and our teens heard him.

He's a great treasure, a great worker of the gospel. And don't you think the enemy wants to target him? Second thing to do is to pray for the protection of gospel workers.

How about a third thing to do? Number three. Do number three is do direct an obedient heart to God's love and to Christ's steadfastness. Do direct your obedient heart to God's love

and the steadfastness of Christ. Check out verse five. Paul calls them to do this. He says, direct your hearts to God's love and the steadfastness of Christ.

Why would he say that? God's love. What Paul's saying is that we are to direct our hearts, to focus our hearts on how much God loves us. To bask in the glory and security that God's love gives us.

It's unconditional love, isn't it? It's perfect love. It doesn't ever mess up or let you down. He loved us so much that he sent his one and only son to die in our place, to die for our sins if you're a believer, to gift you forgiveness, to give you new life for hope

in this world. Our perfectly loving heavenly father wants what's good for us. You realize that? He wants what's best for us. And we need to remember that in a moment of temptation because what's the oldest lie in the book when you're tempted?

This will be good for me. Sometimes we're tempted to believe that if we give in, we'll be satisfied, we'll be made happy by that temptation when we won't.

It's not going to be good for us and a God who loves you knows that and he knows what's best for you. They say sometimes you hear it said, trust your heart.

Don't trust your heart. You have a sinful heart. Sometimes you get it right but you can't trust your heart because our heart can long after things that are not good.

And notice what Paul adds in verse 4, how he has confidence in the Lord about you that you are doing, he says to these believers, and that you will do the things that we command.

Verse 4, he's talking about an obedient heart. And part of how we keep our hearts obedient is by, yes, remembering God's love but also he tells us to focus on something else, on the steadfastness of Christ.

The steadfastness of Christ. Remember, this is the same man, God-man, who in that garden aligned his will with the Father's will even in the moment where it was the hardest.

Christ. This is the same person who endured a 40-day temptation out in the wilderness with not just one of Satan's minions but with Satan himself quoting lies, misquoting scripture.

Steadfast and strong Christ was. And so what are you going to do the next time that you're tempted? What am I going to do the next time I'm tempted?

Am I going to think negatively about God as the original tempter in the original temptation tried to get Adam and Eve to think God's holding out on you?

He doesn't want what's best. Direct your heart to how much God loves you and to how steadfast your Savior was. That's the third thing for these believers and really for every believer to do.

To direct our obedient hearts to God's love and Christ's steadfastness. So, now we've finished the positive part of the sermon and we've got to go into the negative because what we find is we move, skip ahead, down to verse 13.

In these last six verses we find now that Paul's going to talk about the opposite. He's going to talk about some things that we should not do.

So we move from the do's to the don't do's. The first of Paul's don'ts comes right away in verse 13. Don't number one. Don't tire of doing what's right.

Do not tire of doing what's right. Verse 13. As for you brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. Now, the Greek word here, there is a different word for like good works, good deeds and that's not the one that's used here.

Actually, it's a word that means to do what's correct. Do what's right. Stand for the truth. Don't get tired of being people of integrity. Don't ever get tired or grow weary of doing that because sometimes it will be tempting to let yourself get worn down.

To grow tired of doing, of standing for what is right.

One of us says maybe a family member who wants us to embrace their sinful lifestyle. Call evil good. Or maybe just bring home a boyfriend or a girlfriend and let them act like they're married and stay in our house and look the other way.

But the Bible says that believers can't call evil good. We can't be worn down. Or maybe a little closer to home for a lot of us it hits us maybe with how we manage our finances, our money.

Nobody wants to talk about money. There are right ways to spend our money and invest it, right? There are good things we can do and then there are unwise things we can do with our money.

We can be frivolous, we can be impulsive with our money, we can be reckless. I'm a football fan. Anybody else a football fan? We are, what, days away, right?

From this NFL, college football. This is a college football town. And, you know, going to a stadium is all fine and good. It's expensive and it's a headache.

So I like to watch it at home, don't you? You know what I've noticed over the last really couple of years and I expect it will get even worse this year?

The temptation to misuse my money by gambling. You can't watch more than about 15 minutes of a football game and not have a gambling ad. This is a wrong misuse of money to gamble it.

It's unwise. What are right things to do with your money? Well, how about we start with caring for ourselves and our families? Paying our bills.

Be generous and willing to share with someone that needs some help. A genuine need. Now again, we talked about idleness last week so we're not funding idleness but helping someone who really is stuck.

Or how about supporting the ministry of God's work? Supporting your local church so we can fix this air conditioning, right? Right? This is not a plea for that.

Although if you want to give, I think the first bid was $54,000 so anyway. Yeah, it's not cheap. But giving to your local church. This is, you know, do I need to say this?

We don't manufacture a product here. We do not have an assembly line in the fellowship hall. Matt's not out there every day stamping widgets to sell.

I counsel for free. And it's probably as good as you pay for, right? It's pastoral, pastoral counseling. But we depend upon the generosity of God's people.

We depend upon the faithfulness of God's people. Tithing is faithfulness. Giving over and above is generosity. We depend on that. And there are a lot of other situations where we never want to tire of doing what's right.

Such as when your boss at work expects you to fudge on something, not be completely honest about something, or when an administrator wants you to tell a parent something that you know is not true.

You've got to do what's right. Or when your coworkers want you to cut corners because they are. We've got to do what's right. We can never tire of it.

Or when a customer is allowed to believe something that you know is not accurate, we never tire of doing what's right. That's our first don't.

Let's get to the next one. It comes in the very next verse. Don't number two. You're going to love this one. Don't fellowship with the disobedient.

This is a really popular one today. This one packs out churches when you start talking about church discipline. Don't fellowship with the disobedient.

That's what Paul basically says. Verse 14. If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person and have nothing to do with them that he may be ashamed.

Now there's a lot jam-packed in this verse. For starters, we need to understand that this is a category of people who are blatantly resistant to Paul's commands in this letter.

Blatantly resistant to apostolic authority. And really extending from this letter and extending from this point, we know that Paul and the other apostles like him wrote many of these letters in the New Testament that we have.

Not to mention we've got the four gospels that have commands and words from Jesus too. And so really, by extension, we understand that it's all of God's word that's in view here with this principle.

And if we have folks who claim to be fellow believers, claim to be fellow believers, and they refuse to obey what scripture clearly says, and we're not talking about disagreements about third tier theological issues, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, we're not talking about that.

Neither are we talking about somebody that's struggling, that agrees and knows what's right, and I'm just, I'm struggling. We're not talking about that.

What we're talking about, what Paul's talking about, are people who like in verses 6 through 12, when he dealt with the issue of idleness, people who hear and know what's required and simply refuse.

I'm not gonna do it. No, I don't agree. For these folks, Paul has two things to say. The first thing he says is single them out. Ooh, this is popular.

Literally, mark them. I mean, not with chalk, but identify them. Know who they are. Take note of that person, Paul says. And then the second thing.

The reason why you're taking note of them is so you can do the second thing. Have nothing to do with them. Have nothing to do with him or her.

Literally, it's keep away. Keep away from them. Don't associate closely by having the normal, regular, Christian fellowship with them because that would send the message everything's okay.

Everything's fine when it's not.

Now, scholars, honestly, they wonder among themselves, at least the several that I read, what does this look like? What did it look like in Paul's day?

And we don't exactly know. Paul's very quick and very careful to say in verse 15, they are not now enemies. They're not opponents of the gospel.

Don't regard them as an enemy. Simply warn them as a brother or sister so no one's declaring that they've somehow forfeited or lost their salvation or that we're totally done with them.

We are not quite at excommunication, but there is an intentional distancing. Again, how did this work out in Paul's day? We have theories, speculations.

Some speculate that maybe this meant that these kinds of people could still come to the gathering, the worship gathering, but they couldn't stay for the fellowship meal afterward.

How would that be? Next Sunday, we're having a church potluck. All of you who are not disobedient may stay for the dinner.

That's one theory. Again, we don't know for sure. The truth is, we don't know, but that doesn't mean there wasn't something, something happening.

There wasn't some way in which they were purposely and intentionally and lovingly holding back the full fellowship with God's people from disobedient Christians.

To lovingly communicate to them, no, everything is not okay. You are not okay. And thus, we can't be in full fellowship with you. And this is not vindictive.

This is done with hope. Look at Paul's hope. End of verse 14. Look at what he hopes it will produce. Appropriate biblical shame. Maybe you want to write those three words together.

Appropriate biblical shame. That he may be ashamed is what Paul says in verse 14. And the reason I call it appropriate biblical shame is that there's an appropriate context for it.

There's a biblical purpose for it. And therefore, it becomes legitimate. Please understand, don't confuse this with the shame that we normally think of, the kind of shame that the enemy barters in, the shame that the devil uses where he tries to remind you of sins that you've been forgiven for,

sins you've been forgiven of. That's not a shame a Christian should have when we sing about there is no longer any shame, no condemnation. That's what we mean.

That sins that are repented of and owned and given to our Savior are gone. We're not talking about that kind of shame, but we're talking about a kind of shame that is appropriate and biblical and that is even, yes, a tool.

It's kind of hard for us today. We no longer have the sort of honor-shame culture that in many places in the East in our world they still have.

Certainly they had an honor-shame culture in the ancient world and they say that honor and shame were really powerful motivators for conduct, for how people behaved.

Paul is saying I want you to socially distance from disobedient people as a form of church discipline. And when we step back and remember the context here in Thessalonica, it's not exactly easy to be a Christian in this city right now, right?

Already people are shaming you. Unsaved people are saying you're bad for society. They're excluding you. And so now the one place that you have a haven is saying something's wrong and I can't be in close association with you.

This is a challenge for churches and church leaders to try to work this out. You know, some things about our lives today, different as it is today, some things are a lot easier, you know.

Some of the things I mentioned about people opposing gospel workers, you know, I don't feel like my life is threatened daily. But other things about being a Christian today are harder.

And I think this topic, this little subtopic we're talking about is one of those topics that's harder. It's hard to put a command like this into practice because you and I both know what often, what usually happens.

If you say no to a church person, if you exclude them from anything, typically we just get mad and go down the street to the next church. And far too often those churches are willing to accept more people, new people.

Isn't this wonderful? And that's why it's important for pastors to know each other. To talk with each other. We have that here in our area with some of these fellow missionary churches.

And so, you know, if you misbehave and you go over to Granger or Gospel Center or wherever you're gonna go and they call me, I'm gonna be honest with them.

I'm gonna be like, well, we had a few problems. We have lost something without the ability to exercise a kind of church discipline that Paul is talking about.

It's for the good of the church. It's for the purity of God's people. And Paul is telling them it may feel awkward, it may feel hard, but you cannot give in to that pressure.

It is for a disobedient Christian's good for you not to fellowship with them.

Well, the last couple of verses bring us now to Paul's close. And we read it and we might be tempted to read past it too quickly because honestly it sounds an awful lot like his other letters when he closes them in similar ways.

But we need to take a closer look because there is one more thing we should not do. The final don't is this. Don't number three. Don't be unsettled or deceived.

Unsettled or deceived. Isn't that a breath of fresh air that Paul turns now from this rather weighty subject of church discipline? And he now comes to verse 16 and what does he pray for?

He prays for peace. He prays that the Lord of peace himself may give you peace at all times in every way. In other words, what he's telling us is don't let your focus be all upon your own efforts.

Or maybe we should say don't let your focus be only or exclusively upon your own efforts. Focus on the Lord because the Lord will be with you.

That phrase give you peace. You know that's a deliberate echo of a very famous prayer. A prayer that was given to Aaron and his sons the priests in the Old Testament.

The Aaronic blessing. Numbers chapter 6 verses 24 to 26 the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24–26

And then of course there was Jesus echoing that in John 14 John 14 27 he said peace I leave with you my peace I give you. Paul's telling them you're not alone the Lord is with you so have his peace and know his peace

and don't be unsettled but that's not all because as Paul rounds home base now with these last two verses we find him narrowing in on another particular way he doesn't want them to become unsettled and that's by believing a fake epistle a fake letter supposedly written by

him we have evidence from history that this was precisely this phenomenon was happening these pseudo epistles fake letters falsely somebody writes a letter and says I know it'll give it more authority I'll sign Paul's name and they were doing that this is why we heard Paul say what he did

even in the last chapter 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 2 where he said we ask you not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us whether by a prophecy or by a word or by letter so what does Paul do

2 Thessalonians 2:2

he now includes his own personal signature no auto pen for Paul right his own personal signature we wonder if it's more than that some scholars think maybe he took the pen in his hand and actually wrote the last couple of lines in his own hand it was like his own personal

handwriting they say it was normal and customary for ancient writers to use a secretary someone to kind of take dictation an amanuensis they called it and we're pretty sure that Silas and Timothy at various points functioned in this way for Paul but here at the end it's Paul taking the pen

in hand and saying see this is the greeting in my own writing see how the writing has changed you recognize it this is the sign of genuineness for all my letters the way I write you know it's interesting over in Galatians he even describes the way he writes he says he uses

really large letters see what large letters I write Galatians 6 some scholars think maybe he did this because he had an eye condition it could very well be but with this little note at the end Paul not only gives his letter a personal touch and it's that but he also guarantees its authenticity

so that it's don't be unsettled and don't be deceived and both of those callings are just as important for us today for us to not be unsettled for us not to be deceived by a so-called

word we probably are not going to be tricked by a new fifth gospel that somehow somebody's going to write and say this one came from Mary and Martha or whatever that's not likely to happen more often it's going to be an interpretation that mutes or changes or twists God's word but he says don't be

deceived by that and don't be unsettled you have the Lord's peace and he also closes on a note of grace what does he say at the very end verse 18 the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all grace you're going

to need it Paul knows we're going to need his grace the Lord's grace for the things that we're supposed to do and he knows that we're going to need God's grace maybe even more so for the things that we are not to do and this morning we have an opportunity as we get ready to close this service ourselves to celebrate

this grace the grace given to us in the Lord Jesus you can see that the Lord's table has been set for us this morning and we get to celebrate the salvation that makes possible our obedience and so I'm going to ask if the worship team would come to the

stage now and they're going to begin to play I'm also going to ask those who will be serving us if they would take their positions