Stand Firm

to have you this morning. If you're new with us today, we typically walk through a book of the Bible, and we're doing that right now in a smaller book called 2 Thessalonians. So if you would like to find that with me or pull up your app, we're in chapter 2. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, a letter

2 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

that Paul, the apostle, wrote to a very young church in a Greek city, Macedonian city, by the name of Thessalonica. And he had a lot of things to say to this church, and as we saw last week, even touched on some things to come. We're going to double back a bit in this chapter. We took the

first 12 verses, or really technically the first eight or nine last week, and so today I'm going to read the whole chapter, and our focus will be a little bit on those first eight verses, but more so on verses 8 to 17. So you can follow along with me as I read for us, and again I'll begin in verse

1. Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered 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. 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 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 now he who 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 who had pleasure in

unrighteousness. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit, and belief in the truth.

To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our

letter. Now may the 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.

Once again, can you pray with me? Father, we turn our attention to your word because we believe it, we trust it, we know it's for our good. And so, Lord, we sow seeds this morning of truth. We know that only your Spirit can water them and bring the growth.

And for this we ask, in Jesus' name. Amen.

I don't know if you know very much about me. You don't need to know much. But one thing about me is I am not a big person for the sea. Now, I like the beach. I like the shore. But the sea life, being out in the water, is something I'm not so crazy about.

I'm not a sailor. I'm not a boater. I'm not a deep sea fisherman. And if it's a smaller lake, like we did, what, last week for the baptisms, that's fine. I like that fine.

I'll go out. I'll paddle around maybe, motor around a bit. But if you can't see the shore, I'm out. If you can't see the coastline and it's water, water everywhere, some kind of fear takes over for me.

And when I look back at history, I'm encouraged to know, you know, I'm actually not alone. That in the ancient world, a lot of people feared the sea.

And honestly, they feared it for good reason. They didn't have cruise liners. They didn't have massive cargo liners. They had very small boats, relatively speaking.

And when you're in a smaller boat and you're on the sea and a storm hits, it can be life or death. This man here who wrote what we just read, Paul the Apostle, knew all about this.

Paul, we know from the book of Acts, endured shipwrecks. He endured days and night at sea. And it was because of the storms that hit. We know that when a storm hits and you're out on a boat, you are not very secure.

Even those massive cruise liners, if the storm is big enough, you're going to feel it. That boat will still rock to some degree. Well, the reason I'm drawn to thinking about ships and the sea is that that is very much the analogy that fits here.

That's what's in Paul's mind as he speaks about this passage. He speaks up in verse 3 about not being shaken. And then what did he say later on about standing firm?

He knows that there are seas and storms in life. That's why he says in verse 2, don't be shaken or alarmed in a sea of false reports. Bad teaching.

I want you to keep steady, young church. We could say it this way. I want you to keep your sea legs. Keep your footing and stand firm. Now, again, last week we looked at the first part of this chapter and we really concentrated on those first eight or nine verses.

Don't be deceived in any way and be shaken like that. And then Paul went on to reaffirm for them some important truth, didn't he? About what is to come.

He told them, I know you've got people running around and upsetting you, making you think the second coming has already happened. But it has not.

You have not missed our Lord's second coming. And that's because there are things that need to happen first. And oh, by the way, some of this mystery of lawlessness is in fact already at work around you.

And you know that too. You see a satanic spirit of lawlessness at work already. You see the damage of this spirit of the Antichrist in many precursors and forerunners.

And you know that the final form, the ultimate man of lawlessness, has not yet appeared. Because when he does, it will not be long and Jesus does come.

Jesus appears, verse 8, and he will kill this man of lawlessness with the breath of his mouth. Now, we're not going to go back into all the metaphors that are used here.

There's a little bit of a borrowing of some apocalyptic imagery. For instance, breath of his mouth is a reference to his word. You can listen to last Sunday for that.

But this morning, I really want to pick up with the second half of this chapter. And see what Paul has to say. Because what he does say, he goes from saying, don't be shaken or alarmed, to saying, stand firm.

Stand firm. Not always an easy thing to do on the raging seas of life, is it? But here's the thing. More than just command it, Paul. More than just tell these young believers to stand firm.

He also shows them the way. Or really, we could say, shows them the ways. Because that's what I think we see here. Today, I would like to offer you four ways from Paul.

Four ways to stand firm in the unsteadiness of the sea of life. Some of these ways involve certain things. Being aware of certain things. Some of them involve challenges to do things.

And to manifest certain qualities in our lives. Because these will help us stand firm. But let's get started with our first way. And the first way we stand firm is really going to be our biggest and lengthiest point.

Point number one is this. The first way is by being aware of the stages of deception. Be aware of the stages of deception. Deception.

Now maybe you look at this and say, did I miss something? Because I don't know that I see it. But I think actually we do. And there's just a few things for us to put together that do take us back into the early part of this chapter.

Because although Paul is certainly right when he says that deception is going to reach its climax up in the future. Up ahead with this final dark manifestation of the man of lawlessness.

He did also say that the mystery of it is already at work. That means that deception is already coming at us. It was coming at the early church in what?

The 50s A.D.? Deception comes at God's people on through the ages. And I would argue in stages. There are in fact stages in how a person becomes deceived.

What are these stages and what do they look like? Honestly, I could probably just preach the whole sermon on this one point. But from what Paul offers us here in this passage, I'm going to offer and describe briefly five of them.

Here's the first stage. So we're still under that first point. We'll call this letter A. The confrontation stage. Confrontation. The confrontation stage was reached in Thessalonica when these believers heard some, what was it?

Spoken word, verse 2. Got some false letter seeming to be from Paul that was teaching erroneous doctrine. They had been confronted with false teaching.

And we understand that any teaching that contradicts God's revealed truth is false teaching. Now the Thessalonians and other believers in the early church, remember, they did not yet have what we have.

They didn't have a completed canon of scripture in the Bible. All 27 books of the New Testament were not yet bound up together in leather, right?

And available at your local Christian bookstore. We don't even do that anymore, right? We order them online. But they didn't have that. And so for them, it was very much a teacher who would show up, often itinerant style, and deliver teaching.

And what was happening is that some were showing up and delivering to the Thessalonians teaching that contradicted things that Jesus had said.

Things that the apostles had been teaching. Because the apostles, here's the thing. Although the New Testament wasn't bound up in leather yet, they did all agree.

There was a body of doctrine. Yes, even in the middle part of the first century. It's often referred to as the apostolic deposit. The apostolic deposit.

You say, well, what's that all about? They had money in a bank somewhere? They had a fund for their ministry? Well, they might have, but that's not what I'm talking about.

A deposit in the sense of something being entrusted to them. And what was entrusted to them was a body of doctrine. A core of sound doctrine which Paul and the other apostles refer to.

And it's not a mystery what this was. It was the teachings of Jesus and about Jesus. It was about what he's done in the gospel to save us. The teachings of our Christian faith with all of their moral and ethical dimensions.

for how we're supposed to live our lives. Holiness, the lordship of Christ, bearing the fruits of the spirit. All of that was bound up in this apostolic deposit.

And part of that deposit was what Paul was reminding them of in the first half of this chapter. About things that were yet to come. About Christ's second coming.

He was saying, you're false teachers there. You know they're false because they're contradicting what we apostles have told you. And in doing so, the early church was being confronted with false teaching.

Now as far as today, the confrontation stage can look similar to what we see here in Thessalonica. And it can look very different. Because I don't know if you're aware, but we no longer rely upon physical, in-person people to show up and teach us.

Today, teaching comes at us in our world through a variety of ways. Through, yes, live people like me right now who speak to you directly to your ears.

But it can also now manifest in a variety of other forms. Digital, print, conferences, books, podcasts. And maybe the biggest one of them all right now, the ever ubiquitous YouTube.

Right? I mean, you want to be taught? You want to learn something? Where does everybody go? YouTube. And we often find ourselves confronted with things that are false.

Believe it or not, even on YouTube, not everything is true. False teachings, erroneous doctrines about all kinds of things. And we need to be aware of this and realize that there honestly is little we can do to stop it.

Except maybe turn it off. Change the channel, so to speak. We need to recognize that once there is something that comes at us as false, we should tag that as a poisonous well.

And one thing we don't do with poisonous wells is go back and drink from them. So we stop buying the books from that individual. We stop consuming the resources of that other person.

Because if we persist and proceed unawares in this first stage, the confrontation stage, it's not long before we find ourselves past mere confrontation and on into the second stage.

Letter B. Shaken stage. The shaken stage. Again, as we open this chapter, we discover this is exactly where the Thessalonian Christians were.

They had not only been confronted, they had allowed it to shake them. To alarm them. And they were worried. They were afraid they were going to miss out.

They were afraid they had missed out on something. They were questioning themselves. Maybe squabbling about it, as often happens with God's people when there's confusion.

Because that's what you do in the shaken stage. You get stressed. You get bogged down with your doubts. Your heart feels really unsteady and unsettled about things.

So that sometimes you even pull away from your Christian friends. You loosen your grip. Maybe on a piece of sound theology. The shaken stage happens in all kinds of ways.

You know, over in another New Testament letter that Paul also wrote, he talks about this. He talks about false teachers in 2 Timothy who had swerved from the truth.

They were saying that the resurrection, the final resurrection had already happened. And here's what Paul says was the result of that false teaching.

Listen to this. 2 Timothy 2, verse 18. They are upsetting the faith of some. Shaken. I know from personal experience what it looks like for someone to be in a shaken stage.

2 Timothy 2:18

Sometimes they come and talk to me. Or sometimes they come and talk to you. And that might be good. That might be helpful. But a lot of times people in the shaken stage don't do that.

They suffer in relative silence. And they isolate themselves. But we don't want to get to the shaken stage. And we certainly don't want anyone to stay in it for very long.

Because I'll tell you, it very quickly proceeds to the next stage. Letter C. The chilling stage. Chilling stage. You say, the chilling stage.

That sounds cool. That sounds like a place I want to be. Just chilling, right? Hanging out in my faith. Jesus was chill. That's good, right?

No, that's not what the chilling stage is. We mean literally a coldness. We're talking about the kind of chilling that Jesus himself even predicted.

Here he is over in his Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24, verse 12. Talking about how lawlessness that's already at work is going to get worse and progress until the final man of lawlessness come.

Matthew 24:12

But he talks about this phenomenon. As lawlessness increases, he says, And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Cold. A cold love. Other places in the New Testament, like in Revelation 2, will refer to it as an abandoned love. The church at Ephesus that John wrote to was told that they had abandoned the love that they had at first.

You know someone's in the chilling stage when the gospel no longer warms them. Or moves them. Or provides them any comfort. When the story of Jesus and how he came and lived and died in our place to rescue us from death.

And in resurrecting gives us new life and hope. Someone in the chilling stage has no emotion for it. It saps all their enthusiasm for worship and singing.

It saps their delight in being with the people of God. It drains our joy and our hope for heaven. In verse 10 here in our chapter, Paul talks about this.

He says, people get to a point where a person, how does he say it? Refuses to love the truth. And so be saved. The chilling stage of deception is a dangerous stage.

Because sooner or later, it progresses or regresses to this next one. Letter D is the delusional stage. Delusional stage. This is when a person reaches a point where they are literally deluded into believing something false.

This is when someone has fallen full force into the error. And they actually believe lies to be true. Do you know somebody like that? That believes something that we know is wrong, is actually right, is good?

That's the delusional stage. The enemy peddles in the currency of delusion all the time. Just listen to Paul in verse 11 here. After talking about how people fall for deception in verse 10, how they grow cold and refuse to love the truth.

Here's what he goes on to say. He says this, verse 11. Have you ever seen what we're talking about here?

Do you know someone who genuinely and completely believes something that is erroneous? That's false? Deluded into believing something very strange?

Maybe it's a cult-like belief inconsistent with our Christian doctrine. Maybe it's a deluded belief about a particular lifestyle. Maybe it's a delusion about, hey, a person's gender.

The delusional stage. Scripture is telling us that this can happen. That it does happen. And if it happened in Paul's day, it can and it will.

And I think you know it does happen in our day too. And right here, verse 11 tells us that there are times, it's a mystery to us, but there are times when God actually even reaches down into this stage and seals the deal.

You say, well, I don't know how I feel about that. And I would just simply lay out Scripture for you and say, there's a lot of truth that is a little difficult for me, and I don't know how I feel about it either, but it's true.

And God is God, and He's good. I don't know if the image of Pharaoh and what God does with him is a good example where you have a wicked ruler who hardens his own heart, the text says, and then a few chapters later it says that God hardened his heart.

Well, which is it? And passages like this make me want to say I think it's both. I think there's personal will. I think we have a free will.

And I think God sometimes seals the deal. Paul talks about this exact thing over in Romans, the letter to the Romans chapter 1. In that chapter, he describes how people can fall further and further into sin progressively to the point where he says that they think they're wise,

Romans 1 · chapter mention

they claim to be wise, but they're actually fools. Doesn't that sound delusional? Romans 1.24 says that, therefore, God gave them up to their lusts.

Or two verses later, God gave them over to these dishonorable passions. Romans 1.28, God gave them up to a debased mind. When it gets to this point,

all that's left is to live fully into that unrighteousness and sin to the point where you not only think it's good, good for you, but you actually celebrate it and encourage it in other people too.

And that's when you know. That's when you know. You've reached this last and final stage of deception. Letter E, the warped stage. Warped stage.

The warped stage. What's unique about that is when a person reaches a point that they actually take pleasure in unrighteousness. It's satisfying and fulfilling to them to sin.

That's what Paul says here at the end of verse 12. He says that people get to a point where they have, quote, pleasure in unrighteousness. That means that people literally find personal delight in things that are an affront to a holy God.

You know, it's not hard to find an example of this today. Let me just kind of go out on a limb here. I'll criticize the entertainment industries because they're multiple, right?

Some of you who grew up when I did, you know, you maybe came of age and, well, I'm a little older, but the early 90s, I think there was a big turn.

You moved away from sort of more wholesome family sitcoms and entertainment. And you got into the 90s and the early 2000s, and then you had these programs that just kind of painted sexual immorality in a really pleasant, nice light.

Bright, cheerful, nice-looking people, happy lives. They all lived together. And they made it look like it's a delight to participate in this kind of a lifestyle.

The funny bachelor, remember, who can't commit to anything, and he's got a new girl on his arm every night. Remember all those shows? And then it devolved further into sexual sin because then the sitcoms began to feature characters who lived together but weren't romantic because one of them's gay.

Then you had the super likable characters who are often the lesbian and gay characters, and I'm sure now or soon will be trans characters who are just so funny.

They're just so funny that he or she or he, him, or they, them, just steals the show because these writers are good, and they make them funny.

But we should be heartbroken about the confusion in sexual sin, not amused by it. Because when we enjoy these portrayals, and we laugh at them, and put them on our favorites list, and watch the whole series,

and continue to let them normalize these things for us, I'm telling you we need to watch out because we can very quickly enter the warped stage.

The warped stage. I don't know if you've followed the news lately. It's even happening in Christian circles right now.

HGTV power couple Chip and Joanna Gaines are about to roll out a new show. Great production values, they say. It's got promising storylines.

Very creative. I'm sure it will be entertaining, and it's going to feature several families living out the hardships of life in the 1880s, complete with covered wagons and all.

Eight weeks of life on the frontier. And yet, one of these so-called families features two gay men with children. If you enjoy that, if that mockery of the family doesn't bother you

because of the stages of deception, we have a problem. Something is off because that's something being portrayed as right that's wrong. Something sinful being dolled up as beautiful and endearing.

And if we allow ourselves and our family members to be drawn in to these attempts to normalize sin and sit down as a family and watch it together and not talk about what's wrong, we're going to end up in the warp stage.

Certainly our children will. We must stand firm in the Christian life against the stages of deception. All of these stages want to knock out our feet from the sure foundation on which we stand.

This is one way to stand firm is to be aware of the stages of deception. But again, it's not the only way. Here's a second point, a second way.

The second way is this. Manifest your salvation in holiness and belief. Manifest your salvation. If you're a Christian, manifest it in your holiness and in your belief.

Look at verse 13. Notice how Paul writes that we ought always, he says, as if it's our obligation, we ought always to give thanks to God for you brothers, beloved brothers, beloved by the Lord.

Because why? Because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. Notice how Paul points to these two things.

sanctification and belief as the sure and certain manifestations that you've got a salvation that's real. In the midst of the storms of life, if you are trying to live holy, if you are remaining steadfast in your beliefs, Paul says,

this is manifestation of the fact that God chose you. That you are saved. sanctification or holiness. This is the process of a person, a believer, being set apart for God, being separated from what is sinful and worldly,

to be holy as God calls us to be, as God wants us to be. And belief. This is belief in the truth. Again, Paul says that by pursuing both of these things and having them manifest in your life to some extent, that is evidence

that you really are saved. Doesn't it make sense then? If something or someone is trying to destabilize you and upset you, that you'd want to manifest these things even more?

Develop them even deeper in your life? And we need both, don't we? The book of James is such a great help because nobody like James can strike that balance between faith and works, faith and the things you do.

Doesn't he say in his letter, it's great that you believe all the right things. It's great that you've got good theology. Wonderful. You accept all the right doctrines.

Good. But if it's not impacting the way you live your life, what good is it? You need both holiness and belief. And so what's this mean for us, very practically?

I'll tell you what it means. It means that if you're someone who at times feels a little wobbly as a Christian, if you experience seasons of your life where there is spiritual dryness, if you are someone who has ever struggled with doubt, struggled with assurance,

basically what we're saying is if you're a Christian who ever gets wobbly sea legs and feels that they might give out, you should do what Paul says to do and that's lean in.

Lean in and manifest these two things in your life. Lean into your beliefs. Lean into the way you live your life. And what's a great place to be challenged to do this, to be encouraged to do this, both of these things, belief and holiness, to have others around you

on the same journey, undergoing the same ups and downs, having the same struggles and joys. I think it just might be a place like this, right?

The church. God's church. God's people. Because we will give you the right teaching. We will strengthen your belief and we will challenge you to live it out practically.

Challenge you to the holy life. And of course, notice that Paul doesn't expect the church is just going to do this all by itself, all alone.

Doesn't he mention the spirit? Sanctification by God's spirit. It's a reminder that we need the spirit to help us in this. And by way of encouragement, notice how Paul goes on to add in verse 14 that we're called to this.

We're meant for this. We are called to this through our gospel, he says, with the goal that we will one day obtain the glory of the Lord. This means that one day, listen, if you're a struggling Christian, it means that one day you won't struggle anymore.

Can you believe that? That there will come a time when you no longer have any doubts. You no longer have any temptations. How would that be?

Paul is saying that is up ahead for us. But in the meantime, another way for you and I to stand firm is by manifesting our salvation in holiness and belief.

And of course, along those lines, there's an element, a critical element we're going to need in all of this, and that's the third way we stand firm.

Third way is this. It's by holding fast. Hold fast to God's word. Hold fast to God's word. Verse 15. So then, brothers, in light of all this, brothers, Paul says, stand firm and hold to the traditions

you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Hold to the traditions you were taught, Paul says. Of course, in his day, he meant that literally.

This is how he said it to Timothy once over in the letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 1, verse 3. He said, follow the pattern of sound words that you heard literally from me, Paul, in the faith and in the love that are in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 1:3

The pattern of his sound words. Or a chapter later, 2 Timothy 2, verse 2. He says, and what you, Timothy, have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, I want you to take that and entrust it to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

2 Timothy 2:2

Pass on and entrust my apostolic teaching to others. Take the apostolic deposit and deposit it in others. Timothy. And for the Thessalonians, too, they also knew Paul personally.

They also had time with Paul face to face and could hear his actual words and had now received not one but two letters from the apostle. But notice that Paul says, taught not just by me, taught by us.

Us. Yes, it's the whole apostolic deposit. The deposit of sound teaching that would be filled out by the other New Testament writers from the material in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, to the other New Testament epistles from other apostles like Peter and James and Jude

and that guy we don't know who wrote Hebrews or whomever. Because as the first century came to a close, we know what happened by God's providence, by God's perfect planning.

the canon of Scripture came to a close. So that we now have a completed New Testament with 27 books. A completed Old Testament with 39 books.

So that when Paul says, hold to the traditions, church, we hear it a little differently today. Because we hear it from the benefit, from the perspective of having it all full and complete and right here, ready access to it in perfect and final form in our hands right now.

God's Word, the Bible. And for any of us to be able to stand firm in this life, we have to hold fast to God's Word. Again, what's this going to look like?

To hold fast to His Word in your life, in my life? I think the first thing we have to recognize is that if it's true that Scripture is something that is handed down and deposited in us, a sacred deposit that gets passed and entrusted on down through the ages, rule number one with something sacred

is you don't mess with it, right? If you go to a museum and by some stretch of the imagination, I don't know why, the curator of the museum lets you handle something old and sacred, they're not going to because they don't want you messing with it.

You guard that. You protect that. You don't break off a piece. You don't take a pen and I think this needs to read this way. It's sacred. You don't cut out parts that offend your sensibilities.

There's a story about Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers, doing that supposedly with the Gospels because he had an anti-supernatural bias and he thought he would like the New Testament better if there were just no miracles.

We don't get to do that. We receive it. We receive the whole of it and we preserve it and protect it from any meddling or muddying. That's how we hold fast.

And we also hold fast by passing it on to others, by taking what's been entrusted to us and entrusting it to others who are under our leadership.

those who look to us, those who look up to us, those who are being raised by us. So let me ask you very practically, are you holding fast to the Word like this?

In the raging seas and storms of life, to use that nautical imagery again, are you out there just trying to balance yourself on the deck? Or are you reaching out and grasping something?

Grabbing a hold of something that's very firm and secure because God's Word is what's going to be able to keep you stable in the midst of all the rocking of our world.

Maybe it's a personal crisis in your life that destabilizes you. Some of us have gone through personal matters. Some of us deal with physical crises, a financial crisis, a relationship crisis.

Sometimes it's even a faith crisis. I'm asking you, what are you going to grasp and hold on to?

Remember, the third way that we stand firm is by holding fast to God's Word. And finally, let's wrap things up in our chapter with the fourth way Paul shows us to stand firm.

Fourth way is this. Comfort and establish your hearts in good words and works. Comfort and establish your hearts in good words and good works.

This is the last two verses of our chapter here. We've got Paul here. He's not done with the letter yet, but he just takes a moment and he prays.

It's a prayer, a prayer wish, really. He does this a lot. He prays that Jesus and God the Father would comfort and establish their hearts. Hearts sometimes need this.

Sometimes our hearts need comforted. Sometimes your heart and my heart needs rooted and established because they're hearts and because we can't always control how they feel, what they long for, what they're drawn toward,

our affections, our emotions, our fears. But look at what he reminds these believers of in verse 16. He says, you've got a God who loves us, a God who loved us.

As he says above in verse 13, brothers and sisters, beloved by the Lord. That should be comforting to you if you're a Christian here today. That alone should establish your heart to know that you are so loved by God and by our Savior.

But Paul also includes something very practical here at the very end, the last few words of the chapter. And maybe he does this partly, he does it because the Holy Spirit tells him to, but maybe also partly because he knows what it's like to be a mere human being with a mere human heart that can so easily

become uncomfortable and unsettled. He gives some very practical encouragement and it's basically to do this, to speak good words and to do good works.

Good words, good works. He says, verse 17, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. In all the good words you speak and all the good works you do.

Sometimes we overcomplicate things in Scripture and this one should not be overcomplicated. Speak a good word means speak a good word. Do a good work means do a good deed.

We're encouraged to do these things and to know that in doing them, in speaking them, we're actually going to find our own hearts comforted and established.

And doesn't it also have a fantastic benefit for the people to whom we do these things? So go offer someone a word of encouragement. Go give that hurting person a word of comfort.

Write them a note. Send them a text. Write them a card. Send an email. Maybe make a phone call. Do we still do that?

Fill someone else with a good word of encouragement. Because you know, words of encouragement are so much more powerful than we usually realize.

To say, I'm praying for you and to really mean it. To say, we pray later tonight and we're going to pray for this need. You're on my prayer list until you tell me that this is resolved.

Listen to this incredible wisdom from the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 12, verse 25. It says this, Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

Proverbs 12:25

Let me just change it for the women. Anxiety in a woman's heart weighs her down, but a good word makes her glad. You ever been there? Weighed down?

With a lot of worry? Anxiety? And someone comes along at just the right time with a good word. A word aptly spoken. Like apples of gold, I think Proverbs says.

And Paul also mentions the works too, doesn't he? The good works. Because sometimes it's more than a good word that's needed. Sometimes we need to give more than just a, I'll pray for you.

Keep warm and well fed and I'll pray for you. Sometimes we need to accompany a good word with a cup of coffee or a sit down or bring a meal to someone.

Mow a lawn, lending a helping hand, a timely offer of babysitting, a financial gift to help someone get through. Have you ever been blessed by someone in any of these kinds of ways?

I have, many times. I've been on the receiving end of so many good words and good works and I've also known the joy of being able to be on the giving end of these too.

Again, don't forget Paul's whole point here though. As good and as helpful as these good words and good works are for others, what he's saying here, what he's praying for here is that in you offering them to other people, you yourself get a benefit.

And that benefit is that you have your heart comforted and established. Which is another way you and I are going to stand firm in our walk.

Ladies and gentlemen, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work in our world. I don't have to tell you that. I don't have to tell you that we have an enemy.

I do tell you, I remind you, but we have an enemy who does prowl around. He's literally hell-bent on knocking you and I off our feet and on destroying our faith and we need to stand firm.

How are we going to do that? How are we going to help our families stand firm? By being aware of deception and its stages. By manifesting our salvation in holiness and belief.

faith. We're going to do it by holding fast to God's word. And we will stand firm by watching our hearts get comforted and established as we offer one another those good words and good works.

The team's going to come and lead us in that closing song. And as we prepare to sing, can I ask you if you would stand with me, join me, and let's pray.

Amen.

Lord, you are our rock. That's how the Psalms describe you over and over. Whether it was David running from his enemies and needing to find solid ground on which to stand, or whether it's us in some sea of life facing a storm with the ship rocking

and making us wobbly and we're off balance, we know that in the power of your spirit we can stand firm and that's what you want. So Lord, this morning, for some of us who have been lulled into some stage of deception, I pray that you would open our eyes.

Lord, for others of us that are struggling with doubts or with assurance, Lord, I pray that you would help us to lean into holy living and right belief.

Father, help us to hold fast to your word. You've given it to us. It is our sword, our shield. It is our armor. And Lord, let us comfort and establish our hearts by giving to one another these good words and works.

Jesus, by your spirit that you've sent to be with us, to comfort us, to establish us, we know that we can do it. And so we thank you ahead of time and we pray this in your name.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.