Bible Guys Classics: 2 Thessalonians 2 & 3

So today we're talking about how Paul says we should

plant our feet and stand firm.

This is going to be a really good close out

to the second Thessalonian's letter that he wrote. So he's Chris,

I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. Okay, Chris. So

here's a big one. This is a story that is

very near and dear to my heart. But first of all,

are you the kind of person who plans ahead and

leaves early so that you arrive at the place early?

In my mind, I am in your mind, you are

in execution. I'm almost never that way.

Why why what holds you back from Well?

I think it's because I always think best at the

last minute. So my wife always tells me she's a

You're better under pressure anyway, So I operate better under pressure.

So if I'm sitting.

There thinking, oh, if I leave myself thirty minutes, I

can get to heritage on time, then I'll get up

and then as soon as I'm getting ready, I'll think.

Oh, I'm going to do these five things? Oh right,

you know, and my brain activates.

Huh.

I think that's what it is.

So you're trying to cram three more things in before

you have to leave.

I really do believe that's the case. But to be

quite honest with you, my wife would probably say, I'm

just a person who's late.

I don't want to be, but I usually am.

You don't intend to be. No, it's not like it's oh,

who cares about being late? Right?

No?

No, No, I'm the opposite. I want to be on time.

I try to build in a buffer so that I

have Okay, if I need to be there in thirty minutes,

I'm going to need to shut everything down in fifteen

so that I can, you know, so I can get

there early. That kind of thing.

This is the better way to be. Let's be clear.

Absolutely in a lot of things. I think in our

life we would discover that that, you know, if you

just do things my way. But so, here's an article,

you know, from one of the most trusted news sources

out there. Right now, people struggle knowing where they can

get the true news from the Babylon b Yes, is

a place that is very widely respected. If you don't know,

Babylon be's all about satire, yes, But anyways, here's one.

An article is says Dad has family arrived at airport

before it's even built.

Well, first of all, the concept is it's hilarious because

it shows a family with their luggage and the dad's

sort of driving this whole thing, and it's at a.

Groundbreaking construction site.

Construction site, right, yep.

So this is Indianapolis, Indiana. Pro dad and savvy world

traveler Chip Dunnings has taking his family on vacation and

to avoid missing the flight, has made sure the family

shows up packed and ready to go before the airport

is even built. Quote. It's important to show up good

and early, just to be safe, said Dunnings as he

zipped up his fanny pack and directed his kids to

bring all your things out to the car.

Impact, honey, hurry up.

Construction on the new I N D West TERMINALSS SLAVE

does start any day now. Why isn't everything packed already?

Mister Dunnings then sped things up using his preferred method

of walking through the house loudly. Well, let's go, let's go.

Let's go, I prefer method.

So obviously this is making fun of people who get

there in credibly early.

Right.

This is me, this is me. My wife said, you

come busting through the house. Let's go let's go, let's go,

let's go, let's go. And she said, I'm the one

that's putting the coat on the kids and making sure

we've got everything ready and everything's by the door. She said,

it's so easy for you to blow and just demand

that we all leave instantly, right And you know, she said,

I'm the one that's trying to put it all together.

So yeah, it's so terrible. Yeah.

Yeah, So when it comes down to it, I used

to be a person.

I will say this. There are certain categories that I'm

never laid for. I shouldn't say never, but almost never

laid for, and airports is definitely one of them. Uh So, yeah, yeah,

I am always extra careful and I am that guy,

hey let's go, let's go, let's go. And people say

get through this amount of time, I'm like, nope, at

a half an hour. So I'm always there super early

because I want to be at the gate saying nothing happened,

no construction happened, nothing happened with a big long line.

I'm always fearful of that. Right. So I've gone, I've

got the TSA checked.

All that stuff, I get all that, but I still

get there super early.

I'm flying out tomorrow. I have a conference I have

to be at and my wife is going with me,

and I always build in enough of a buffer. I've

never missed a plane. I've never had, you know, trouble

at those at TSA or anything that held me up

where I had to go running. The only time one time,

I was in Amsterdam and I miscalculated the time change,

and so I'm just sitting there texting with my wife

and suddenly I realized that they were saying my name

over the speaker. And if you ever been in that

amster in the airport at Amsterdam, it's huge. Yeah, it

feels like miles. So I grabbed my bag and I

take off running, and I am so far away from

where I needed to be. I thought I had three

more hours. I totally missed it. I did the math

backwards instead of forwards, right, That's what happened. Yeah, So

I'm running and they skipped everything and just walked me

on and literally closed the door behind me, and everybody

clapped when I got on the airplane. So apparently i'd

held the plane. The only time ever that I did,

I was there. I just did the math wrong. But

most of the time. I'm an early guy too. I'd

love to be early.

So let me se you real quick. One time I

had to lay over in Baton Rouge because my flight

was late. It wasn't because of me, and I had

to actually spend the night in the airport. So it

was like from midnight to six am, and my plane

left at like six So I was so bored because

it's such a small, you know, airport. I decided to

rent a car and just go out to Denny's at

like two o'clock in the morning. I was by myself,

so I had this rent a car and I'm driving back,

you know, after sort of trying to stay up all night,

and it was like four in the morning. You know,

I'm just thinking this is I can't believe I found

myself in the situation. And then I was so tired

driving back to the airport. I only had like maybe

three miles to go, big long stretch on these service roads,

and I pulled over on the side of the road,

put it in park, and I said, I'll just lay

my head back a second. And I laid back for

a second and I woke up and I realized my

plane left in like seventeen minutes.

Oh no, And so I.

Literally put it in drive. And I'm not going to

tell you the speed in which I I did, but

I pulled.

Underneath probably rate at the appropriate speed.

Yes, appropriate speed limit. And then I pulled underneath the carport.

And as I'm getting out, I grabbed my bag and

the guy goes, you can't leave that there. I'm like,

it's left there. I'd left it literally with the door open.

And then I ran. This is how much I was

running for time. And then I turned the corner to

go right, and I was passing all of the rented

cars like enterprise. I was sprinting as fast as a

twenty five year old could sprint. I didn't even slow down.

Jeff.

I grabbed the keys as I was running by the

desk and threw them as hard as I could, and

I hit the back wall. And the two ladies behind

the desk saw this keys fly by their head and

it hits the back wall and I said.

There's the keys.

I said, it's PERTLYWN.

Kept on running and then I go to the and

I go to the lady and I'm like, get me

on the plane, and she goes, you're not going to

make this flight, and I freaked out because my pastor

actually had threatened me and told another story, you better

be back here on Sunday morning, right and then anyway,

so I started screaming, Oh, I gotta get all this flying,

and I ran as fast as I could made it.

Wow. Yeah, those are back in the old days, before

you had all the other checkpoints and TSA tackling you

for looking sideways and stuff.

Right, yeah, what was after eleven?

But wow, wow, that's something else, man, I.

Know, I know.

Okay, well, actually it wasn't say if you were twenty five, Yeah,

it was before. It was before kind of message you're

trying to send everybody that you weren't twenty five.

Happened when I when I was just two.

Years old, Okay, okay. So we are wrapping up now

on first Thessalonian or second Thessalonians, and he's really going

to lean into uh believing believers, standing firm and closing

out this idea, uh, clarifying all of his statements. So

we're gonna start off in verse thirteen says as for us,

we can't help, but thank God for you, dear brothers

and sisters. Love by the Lord We are always thankful

that God chose you to be among the first to

experience salvation, a salvation that came through the Spirit who

makes you holy, and through your belief in the truth.

He called you to salvation when he when we told

you the good news. But now you can share in

the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. With all these

things in mind, dear brothers and sisters, stand firm and

keep a strong grip on the teaching we passed on

to you, both in person and by letter. Now may

our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, our Father, who

loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort

and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you and

every good thing that you do. And say, finally, dear

brothers and sisters, we ask you to pray for us.

Pray that the Lord's message will spread rapidly and be

honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you.

Pray too that we will be rescued from wicked and

evil people. For not everyone is a believer, but the

Lord is faithful. He will strengthen you and guard you

from the evil one. And we are confident in the

Lord that you are doing that you are doing and

will continue to do the things we commanded you. May

the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and

expression of the love of God and the patient endurance

that comes from Christ. And Now, dear brothers and sisters,

we give you this command in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Stay away from all believers who live

idle lives and don't follow the tradition they received from us,

For you know that you ought to imitate us. We

were not idle when we were with you. We never

accepted food from anyone without paying for it. We worked

hard day and night so we would not be a

burden to any of you. We certainly had the right

to ask you to feed us, but we wanted to

give you an example to follow even while we were

with you. We gave you this command. Those unwilling to

work will not get to eat. Yet we hear that

some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work

and meddling in other people's business. We command such people

and urge them, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

to settle down and to work to earn their own living.

As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters,

never get tired of doing good. Take note of those

who refuse to obey what we say in this letter.

Stay away from them so that they will be ashamed.

Don't think of them as enemies, but warn them as

you would a brother or sister. Now, May the Lord

of Peace himself give you his peace at all times

and in every situation. The Lord be with you all.

Here is my greeting and my own handwriting, Paul. I

do this in all my life to prove they are

from me. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

be with you all. So I love that he ends it.

Here's my greeting of my own handwriting. And then he

signs his name Paul. Right. Yes, he does that a

couple of times. So another time we just read what

was it relations where he says, notice how big the

letters are. I'm signing this so that you know it's mine.

Normally he would probably be dictating the letter to a

secretary or something, but then he would take up the

thing and then write in his own handwriting. And some

people estimate that perhaps he struggled with eyesight. There's a

couple of issues that come up in his writings, and

so that might be why he wrote such big letters

when he would write you know that he didn't see

well or whatever. That might be the thing. But I

always think it's funny, Hey, look at I'm signing this

on my own, my own handwriting. So that's kind of

the certificate of authenticity, is what he's doing there.

His administrator should here sign this.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

That's great.

So standing firm. And by the way that I just

want to say, I like you. I actually really love

the term standing firm. So I have a life verse

for Corinthians fifteen fifty eight, and it says, stand firm,

always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as

much as you know that your labor in the Lord

is never in vain.

So that's my life verse.

And stand firm is one of those things where it

sort of fits the personality that I gravitate toward. You know,

no matter what you're going to do, come at me,

you're not going to win, You're not going to knock

me down, right, stand firm, And so I think that

that's you know, it's encouraging to know that you can

have that same sort of grit with your faith. And

that's really what Paul's doing. He's encouraging people to have

a grit with their faith because Paul in this whole

chapter talks about, Hey, we were never idle, we worked

our butts off, we never coasted, and you know, just

because of my title, I never asked to do anything.

But he also says, stand firm in your faith because

they've modeled it, they've been persecuted, they've been beaten, they've

been shipwrecked, they've been you know, all sorts of things,

you know, jailed, and so he asks us to stand

firm in our faith.

Yeah, he says, stand firm. And then he also says,

to keep a strong grip on the teaching that we

passed to you, right, so you got to hang on

to it. A lot of the things that we learned,

they slip through our hands. We lose a grip on

them if we don't intentionally hang on. And so one

of the ways is keep refreshing and reminding ourselves of

these words. That's why he had commanded I want these

letters read publicly. I want these things out there where

everybody has access to these words, because otherwise you forget

them and I think a lot of the struggles and

difficulties when we shift back from doing things God's way

to start behaving like the rest of the world acts

like godless people act, is because we've lost our grip

on God's words and we slip back into just our

normal habits, in the normal way humans would do things,

because God's way is so counterintuitive, it's so different from

our way. And so you know, stand firm and hang on,

hang on tight to right these words, right, these teachings.

Yeah, and then he goes on and he talks about

how those are idle. Remember what we said, the reason

why he wrote the second Thessalonians was because people were

being idle and they were misunderstanding what he meant about

the Lord's coming.

And by the way, Paul was a tent maker.

By trade, so he worked day and night, never to

be a burdened with everybody.

And then how are you like this for a policy?

Those unwilling to work will not get to eat.

Yeah, yeah, some political.

There be some political debate about that.

Well, I told you about the domestic dispute. The whole

village was having a domestic dispute. East in West Africa,

northwest Kenya, and we came into this village and all

the women, there's probably seventy five eighty women and probably

one hundred and fifty children are throwing rocks and they

have sticks in their hands, and they're yelling at the

men who are all together on the other side of

the road. And I wanted to know what's happening. And

my translators like, oh, I don't want to get involved.

I said, I don't want to get involved. I just

want to know what's happening. You know, we'd gone for

days and days and days without any television, so now

this is the biggest drama i'd seen it in a while.

And most of our work was done for that day.

Sun was just setting. It was right around dinner time.

And finally he said, well, the women have discovered in

the Bible that it says that if a man doesn't work,

he shouldn't eat. And the women were saying, you are

a bunch of lazy men, and so we cook the

meals and we're not gonna let you eat any more

food unless you work harder. And it is true. In

that village. Alls I ever saw the men do is

they all sit on they have stills, they'd make this

really horrible hoots apparently, I mean it's rock kind of stuff.

They would drink and they played like this. It's like

a dice game. It's kind of like have you ever

seen Mancala where you move the stones and the thing.

It's kind of like that. They would make these grooves

in the dirt and they would play this game kind

of like that's called bao and they're playing it in

the dirt. And that's how they do all day long,

is play. And then on occasion they'd fight battles and

steal other people's cow. So that's basically it. And so

the women were like, we build the we call the water,

we take care of the children, we cook the meals,

we maintain the fires. You guys don't do anything. So

the guys they all stand up and then they go,

we're going to go out and talk about it. We'll

come back later and I will tell you what we're

going to do. So then about an hour later they

all came back. They went out in the bush. They

come back by an hour later and the leader stands up.

He says, you're right. We've decided you're right, and so

what we're going to do is we're going to provide

better security and we're going to make sure that the

boys take better care of the cows, which meant they

weren't changing anything. They didn't. They didn't change one thing,

but it was that's what was happening, is the women

were frustrated because the men were being lazy. That's it.

When we are surrounded by lazy people, it makes it

so much harder for everybody else because everybody else has

to pick up the load that you're leaving, you know,

all this stuff undone and everybody else has to do it.

So it becomes very frustrating and causes a lot of struggle.

But when everybody gets in and helps, then it makes

things so much easier.

Yeah, I agree for sure.

It's fantastic, what a great thing. And he's really going

after him on it. By the way, this is a

big I mean, he takes a bunch of verses.

Right, Yeah, he sure does. And then there's a whole

section in here. He calls for prayer. He asks to pray,

pray that the Lord's message will spread rapidly, you know,

pray for us, Pray that the wicked people will will

leave us alone, and that we'll be rescued from them

because not everyone is a believer. And you know, and

then and by the way, there's a promise in there too,

he says, But the Lord is faithful.

He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one. Yeah,

and which is a great verse to take.

And just you know, remind ourselves with God will strengthen

us and protect us from the evil one.

So he's his great desire with all the other things

he has to talk about. His great desire is regardless

of the persecution, regardless of the theological confusion, regardless of

the interpersonal struggles that we have. The most important thing

is pray that the Lord's message will spread rapidly. Right.

So sure, there's all these peripherals that we got to

work on. I'm going to write your book to talk

about it. But the most important thing is that nothing

hinders the gospel. We need strength, we need protection, we

need courage. And then pray that you know, people's hearts

will be prepared and ready to hear the good news

of the Gospel, so that the word continues to spread quickly.

And he talks about how it came to you, right,

just like you received it, you know, I'm reminded often

and one of the most profound thoughts I think I've

ever had was the Gospel came to me on the

way to someone else. God's goal wasn't just so I

could go to heaven. Two thousand years ago and two

thousand years of Christian history was not supposed to culminate

with Finally Jeff Forster became a Christian. God wipes the

dust off his hands as well, We're finished. Now, that's great,

we did it right. The Gospel. Good top guys finally

got it. The Jeff two thousand years later, or to

any of our listeners, God's goal wasn't just to get

you to heaven. God's goal was to bring the Gospel

to you so that it would transform your life. But

it was to you on the way to someone else.

And so it's incredibly important for us to understand that

our mission is not done the moment we trust Christ,

or the moment we start developing the ways of Jesus

in our own life and the character of Christ to

grow up to become more like him, that's not it.

Our mission will be finished when he calls us to heaven.

But between here and there, he wants us to go

reach other people, not only that the gospel would spread,

but that it would spread rapidly. And so God's goal

is not just to trickle along. And maybe someday you'll

have the guts to bring up a spiritual conversation with

your lost friend. God said, do it. Do it now,

be rapid about it. Push, keep pushing forward with the gospel.

I love it. I love it.

Yeah, And it's a great reminder that, you know, we

can do a lot of really good things in the world,

but you know, furthering God's message, his plan of salvation,

it's the one thing that matters the most. So I

did a funeral just an hour ago, an hour and

a half probably ago. And by did of funeral, I

just mean for these those who officiate, yes and so.

And the funeral director was there next to me, and

I said, yeah, I don't mind doing funerals at all.

And he said why, And I said, well, for three reasons.

Number one, and I do funerals and I don't mind

them because Number one, I always give the Gospel unless

the family tells me not, to which.

I'll honor the request. I always give the gospel.

I always tell people how to get to heaven always,

and I've done seven hundred and something funerals and I've

done it almost every time.

And then number two, I give it.

I give the gospel to people who are at a

time in their life where they're most susceptible and they're

most sensitive to it because they're around death. And then

number three, those people most likely will never set foot

in the church. Those aren't church people or people that

are prone to go to church. Those are people that

just have to go to funerals and they may never

set foot.

In the church. Yeah, to clarify you, you help out

at funeral homes around the region for people who don't

have a minister to do a funeral. You didn't do

seven hundred funerals at our church. It's not dangerous to

attend to here to the church.

Right, It's especially since I've only been there too.

Yeah, exactly. But it's that you've you've reached out and

made yourself available to the families in our community who

otherwise don't have a spiritual leader or somebody to depend

on in these crisis.

But I'm also referring to all the funerals I did

before I got here. Yeah, yeah, church, sure, So my

over thirty one years, I've done X amount of funerals.

But yeah, for sure.

I mean because I think in my whole ministry, I've

done like maybe seventy five funerals and your whole Messageah yeah, yeah,

yeah in thirty years.

Is that so? Yeah?

Yeah, because I've always been in younger churches, and so

you don't do as many funerals in younger churches, right, yeah,

with young people. But so to do seven hundred and fifty,

that's a lot of funerals.

Yeah. Well.

The only reason why I even know that number is

because I have a little file on my computer and

you click on get info and it tells you how

many files are in it, and right now it's like

seven hundred and something.

Yeah. Yeah, Well, what a great ministry to be there

when people, You know, the ministry of a chaplain is

to is the ministry of presence being with somebody, uh

in a spiritual way, being with somebody in their their

most difficult times. And so for you to be able

to step in, not as the pastor at Heritage Church

or the pastor at Kensington or whatever, but stepping in

instead and saying we don't know each other, but I'm

willing to be here for you spiritually in this moment.

It's that there's tremendous power on that. It's the same

thing for our listeners at work. You might know the

people loosely kind of know the people in your in

your your office, but when there's a crisis and you

step up say I just want you to know I'm

praying for you, and then circle back with them later

and say, how is.

Anything I give you piece of godly advice?

Yes? Or hey, I've been praying for you. How can

I pray for you? Right, and engage on a spiritual level.

That this ministry of presence is very significant and it

opens the door for sharing the Gospel, which is your

primary motivation. Right.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Oh that's brilliant man, I think it's great.

All right, Well, that's it's a good place to end,

and we will see you next time on the Bible guys.

MHM