The Church's Worship

Well, our text this morning for the preaching is found in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 25 to 28, the last four verses of this first letter to the

Thessalonian Church. And we'll read that in a moment, but as I read it, there's a couple of things

I want you to key in on as I go through just these four verses. I want you to notice the plural that is used for the people who are addressed.

It's going to be brothers. You're going to hear brothers three times, brothers in the first verse, all the brothers, then all the brothers.

The first verse means all the brothers just as much as the second two occurrences, but it would be a clumsy way to write that particular sentence.

So listen for brothers, and then in verse 27, when the Lord is mentioned, and in verse 28 where he alone is mentioned, in 27 with the brothers, we have the

Lord. In verse 28, the final verse of this letter, the Lord alone is mentioned.

And Lord willing, as we go through this message, you'll see how we can tie these together.

I believe there's a strand of thought that the Apostle Paul has for us and what he intended for us.

So with that short introduction, please stand for the reading of just these four verses. 1

Thessalonians 5 25 to 28 is the

Word of God. Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And God bless the reading of the proclamation of his word. Please be seated.

You know, if you read this letter through from start to finish, it wouldn't take you very long, but if you did that, you might expect, or you might have expected, that a good place for this to end would have been the end of the last sermon we have on this, which is verse 24.

Well, if we look at that, let's begin at verse 23 for just a moment, where we were a week or so ago. Now may the

God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.

And would that not be a great place to say, Amen? Now, get on with sanctification.

Keep showing brotherly love, just as you're doing. Keep living lives pleasing to God, just as you are doing.

Don't forget that God's will for you is sanctification. Sexual morality is his will for you, and so forth.

Wouldn't that be a great place to say, Amen? And now let's get back to work. I've got things to do in Corinth from which he wrote this letter.

It seems that that's kind of the natural place for it, but that is not what the Apostle did. The Apostle went on for these four more verses

I just read. And you'll notice in your ESV Bible at least, that there's no superscript before those verses.

They're not brought out as a separate section. Up above, before verse 12, it says final instruction and benediction.

That's your publisher, not the inspired author. And so what pulls these together?

What is the Apostle Paul giving as these four verses? Simply four disconnected things that are just good things for the church to remember?

I believe that that is the case. They are good things to remember. It's the inspired Word of God. But what is the thread of thought?

What's the unifying theme of these verses? It's worship. It is worship that the

Apostle Paul is speaking of here, or writing about here. He speaks in the plural, and he speaks of prayer.

He speaks of special greeting. He speaks of the reading of Scripture, and he speaks of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that took us through each of those verses in order.

This is speaking of the assembled church come together to worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

And notice brethren, it's all in the plural. We come together as a body in accord with the

Scripture, not forsaken the assembling together of ourselves, as it says in Hebrews, as is the practice of some.

And here we have, in a rare place in Scripture, we have some instruction.

We have some indication of what is to be included in our worship, and what is your responsibility in our worship as we come together.

That's what these verses are about. God willing, when we're done, you will understand just how important it is that we do come together.

That we are in each other's locale, if you will, and worshiping, and singing, and praying together as a body.

This is the final instruction of Paul to the Thessalonian Church. And I wish the publishers had, after verse 24, put one of those superscripts in there, and said

Paul's instruction for worship. The title of my message is the church's worship. That's what these are about.

So it's about prayer. It is about greeting one another properly in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and the meaning behind that. It is about the reading of Scripture, the attendance to God's Word through the reading and the preaching, and it's about Christ's presence with us.

So let's look at these in order, these four verses. First Thessalonians 5, 25 through 28.

He starts, he says, brothers pray for us. Now in many places in Thessalonians, he calls them brothers.

Paul was particularly close, particularly warm, emotionally attached to this church. There was something about them.

He doesn't give us the details, but the expressions he uses make that very clear. Brothers, he says, pray for us.

You know, this is more than what we hear so often. Our thoughts, and our prayers, and our well wishes are with you.

Even after tragedies or atrocities like the mass shooting that happened a few months ago at the

Valley Transportation Authority. We hear that quite often, don't we? Our thoughts, our prayers, our wishes are with you.

We hope that you can get through this. Anything we can do, and these kind of wishes, and oftentimes in the very civic sense, they're well -meant, and people do a lot for each other.

But the Apostle Paul is speaking of something deeper than just this facile thoughts, prayers, well wishes.

He says, brothers, pray for us. Not just thoughts with us. Prayer to Jesus. Praying on behalf of Paul, and Silas, and Timothy, the great

Apostle there in Corinth. Corinth was a rough city. It was a tough place to do ministry.

It was a dangerous place to do ministry. Paul calls for prayer. But not just for Paul himself.

Prayers everywhere commended to us, and commanded to us in the Bible. Pray without ceasing. He told the

Thessalonian Church earlier in this letter. Now this is no say, by the way, before I forget, send up a well -wish for me.

It'll make me, and Timothy, and Silas feel better. What is this? If these four verses are about the assembled church, about us coming together to worship

God in this way, prayer is the necessary basis for all we do.

What is a church without prayer? It's not a church. The expression in the Latin is sine qua non, without which not.

Something that is so essential to the character of something that if you don't have this, it's not what it purports to be.

I think of a battleship that doesn't have turrets and guns on the turrets. Without guns and turrets, it's not a battleship.

That's the sine qua non, the without which not, of a battleship. And you can think of so many examples.

I'm sure they're running through your mind now. But the church without prayer,

I would argue, is not even a church. It's assembled church.

It's assembled prayer. I need to ask you this morning. Do you believe in the power of prayer?

Do you believe when the Apostle Paul says brothers pray for us, he meant something real is happening. That when the church prays for him, the missionary there in Corinth, or wherever else he went, or when we pray to God for our missionaries, for ourselves, for our health, for our growth in Christ, whatever we pray for, that we actually do come before God in Jesus name and come to the throne of grace.

I ask you, do you believe in the power of prayer? Do you understand the importance of corporate prayer?

These are all in the plural. Brothers, not you brother, not you pastor, not you specially sanctified, set aside, and holy one who's the minister of prayer for the church.

No, no, no, no. It's all of us. It's all of you. It's the power of prayer, and it's the essential gathering, the plurality of it.

Now we have a great example of the power of prayer, and I want to bring this to you. And as I read to you from Acts chapter 12, and we're going to look at what happened when

Peter was released by the angel from prison. As I read this,

I want you to ask yourself, is this the kind of prayer that I pray?

Is this the kind of prayer that I believe God really hears and God really responds to? Did this actually even happen?

Acts chapter 12. I'm going to begin at verse 6. Of course, this is Peter in prison.

James had just been executed by Herod. Herod saw that that made the Jews very happy, so he said, well, let's get

Peter. And he's got Peter in prison, and he's going to behead him as well. I'm going to start at verse 6 so we get all the context here.

Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying,

Get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, Dress yourself and put on your sandals.

And he did so. And he said to him, Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out and followed him.

He did not know what was being done by the angel was real, but thought that he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading into the city.

It opened for them of its own accord. And they went out and went along one street. And immediately the angel left him.

When Peter came to himself, he said, Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the

Jewish people were expecting. Quite a story, is it not? Where did this come from?

What's that angel doing there in prison? Knocking off chains, keeping guards asleep, an iron gate opening of its own accord.

Do you believe in the power of prayer? When we come together and pray, before I read the rest of this incident, this history,

I need you to ask yourself as I read it, Is this the kind of God that I know

I'm praying to? When he realized this, he went on to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was

Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. The church was praying.

The church was gathered together, not sending up well wishes and just good thoughts to Peter and saying,

You know, when you put your head on that block, I hope you're not too frightened. God will be with you. No, no, they're praying.

They've come together as a body in this home, and they're praying. Where did that angel come from?

Well, from heaven. Why did the angel come down from heaven? Because it was

God's will to send the angel. And why did the angel release Peter? Again, it was

God's will. What's the catalyst behind that? Well, God's going to do what

God does. We know that. It's prayer. God bends his ear to the prayers of his people.

And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Recognizing Peter's voice and her joy, she did not open the gate, but ran in and reported that Peter was standing at the gate.

They said to her, You're out of your mind. But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying,

It is his angel. But Peter continued knocking, and when they opened, they saw him and were amazed.

But motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said,

Tell these things to James and to the brothers. Then he departed and went to another place. Now, it's a sermon.

It's a message for another day about the church being amazed and not quite ready to believe that God had answered the prayer, and there was

Peter alive and well. The fact is, and the point for us and the question for you, has to do with praying.

It says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, that when we come to God, we need to believe that he is and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

How do we diligently seek God? Through prayer. Through prayer.

Do you have this kind of faith and confidence in prayer? It's not confidence in yourself. It's not your eloquence.

It's not the length of your prayer or the brevity of your prayer. It's not that your words are so incisive and your sentences are put together so wonderfully.

It's the God to whom we pray. Do we have that kind of confidence in prayer?

And then I want to point out to you once again that these are corporate brothers.

Pray for us. He doesn't mean just the men in the church. Brothers here is brethren. Saints together.

You all with faith in Christ, members committed to a single, discreet, local church as here.

You all, as children together, as God's children by faith in Christ, pray.

Pray for the church. Pray for our needs. We have medical needs. We have missionaries.

We have friends who are suffering. We have all sorts of things that we pray for. The afternoon here at this church, the main part of it is prayer time.

It's directed prayer. It's a little bit formal. Yes. And it keeps us on track and it's based on scripture.

We read scripture, then we pray. We read scripture, then we pray. Together. Are you there? Am I just trying to make you feel guilty?

Honestly, at this point, I'm not concerned if you feel guilty or not, because if you do, perhaps that's the

Spirit of God tweaking you a little bit and saying, you know, your church, this place, has those prayer meetings.

Are you there? And when you pray, do you believe? Remember, it's the God we pray to.

It's not we and how we pray. Years ago, we had a member here, a single woman, who was saved out of Catholicism.

She came to me once. I said, Pastor, when we pray, I believe it was Wednesday nights when we came together

Wednesday nights for our corporate prayer. She says, why don't we kneel? That's what I did when

I was in Catholic church, and I thought it was so beautiful. Why don't we kneel when we pray? You know what my answer to her was?

I said, you know, if you or anybody else wants to kneel or stand or raise your hands as you pray, we had one couple who used to do that, or if you're going to bow your head and put your chin on your hands and have them clenched tightly as you pray, anything that is not disorderly and interrupting the service, yes, the point is not our posture in our bodies.

The point is our posture and our spirits. The greater point, remember, the

Apostle Paul says, brothers, pray for us. Brothers, pray for us.

That's the church in Acts chapter 12. That's the only history I'm going to bring up to remind you that when we come together in prayer, we need to set aside our reformed understanding of God's predestined will, that God is going to do what

God has done, that all things whatsoever, no matter how small they are, God has determined them before the foundation of the world.

Yes, we know that. We believe that. I stand by that. And yet we pray as though it makes a difference.

We pray as though when God bends his ear to us as he does, that God hears us and answers according to what we need insofar as it is his will.

Among the Apostle Paul's final thoughts, this church for which he was so warmly attached, brothers, pray for us.

And I say to this church, brothers, sisters, saints all, believers in the

Lord Jesus Christ, be with us when we pray. Be with us when we pray.

Do you know the encouragement it is when someone is shoulder to shoulder with you? You hear those prayers and you hear people behind you and they're far enough away, you can't quite make it up, but you know by the tone that they are praying with you.

And all the church sort of magnifying their prayers together as they accelerate as it were with greater power up to heaven.

Brothers, pray for us. Prayer, the sine qua non, the without which not.

How much do we pray in this church? Be there with us. I plead with you.

Be with us when we gather together and pray. He says, greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

You see our common bond in Jesus Christ is illustrated or must be illustrated by an outward demonstration of our mutual affection.

An affection that is holy and good and right. An affection we have because Jesus Christ bled for you as much as for me and for the other one.

Affection we have because we're brothers and sisters together in the Lord Jesus Christ. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

Now this is one that I'm sure gives some of us shudders. Oh my goodness.

What's he going to do with that kiss? What was that kiss? How long are we going to spend describing it? Not long.

Not long. It was a way of greeting that was common then. As I understand it, it was sort of like the

French kiss. You know that double kiss that you see the French do? And they don't actually touch with the lips. And I don't believe in Paul's day they were.

I think it's a cheek and then a cheek. So lips don't touch. That's called the holy kiss. It would be as odd for them not to have that kind of a holy kiss then.

Then as it would be for us to do it. It doesn't fit us. And the great bearded one is halfway across the country now.

But when I was looking at this and I was thinking about how to present to you, I was thinking, well, you know, I'd assume put my cheek next to a porcupine then, than that guy.

But that's just being a little silly about it. But we don't do that. It would be improper for us to do that with another man's wife.

It just looks wrong here. Two thousand years ago it wouldn't be. Today it is. What is it that we need to do?

How do we apply this? He says, greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

That common expression of the day which would correspond to a handshake, a side -by -side embrace, a pat on the shoulder, that sort of a thing.

There's an outward, there's a tactile that greeting that we need.

One of the reasons I understood this to be worship in the gathered church is this word greet. It's in a form in the

Greek called eros. You don't have to remember that. But it means at a particular time, and not just once in your lifetime, but at a particular time, an event, if you will, that event being that gathering for worship.

When we come together, there should be this demonstration, this tactile, this physical demonstration of our bond together.

And again, as I said, something that's culturally appropriate, something that fits the time and the place where we are.

But it's elevated, you see. In Paul's day, it was very common.

It was like our handshake. Just, hey, how you doing, bud? You shake the hands and off we go. You know, no big deal.

In the civic sense, it's a very nice thing. See, in Christ, even things as mundane and as everyday as a handshake can be elevated, can be made sanctified, can be made holy.

It's elevated. It's not just a handshake. It's not just a hug. It's not just that connection that we have physically and appropriately.

It's elevated. It's more than that. It illustrates something. Our bond together, our mutual love for one another because of our love for Christ, our common

Savior. You know, I read that our expression goodbye comes from centuries ago, meaning

God be with ye, and different ways of doing that in the Gaelic language and everything, which

I couldn't even pronounce, but you get the idea. Goodbye started out as God be with ye, God be with you, and they meant it in a deeper way than just what we do today.

It evolved to goodbye, and that doesn't have to be flippant or anything like that. But you see, as the holy kiss in their day, and perhaps the handshake or the clap on the back in our day, was such a common physical expression of friendship, in Christ, it's elevated.

It's greater because of what it indicates, because what it illustrates, because of who

Christ is, and because of Christ who we are together. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

It's elevated. It's transformed. You know, we enjoy the show

Chopped. You ever watch Chopped? It's a cooking show where four chefs have to make these meals, these three meals, for these very famous chefs who judge them, and if your meal is not as good as the other contestants, you're chopped, and you're not the contestant, and you don't get to move on to the next round.

And they take things like, the last time I saw this, they had a hot dog cake.

They had these hot dogs sticking up around a bed of chopped up hot dogs, or mushed up hot dogs, something like that, and they had to elevate it.

This is the point I'm getting to. Take this very common thing, hot dogs, and they had to elevate it so that these famous chefs who are the judges would be impressed with it.

Well, we're not trying to impress anybody, but these common expressions, these tactile physical expressions, elevated, holy, and sanctified, and required in some way in the church of Jesus Christ when they come, we come together.

He says, greet all the brothers. It's in the second person, you greet all the brothers.

Every other time, the holy kiss is mentioned two more times by Paul, once by Peter. It's you all greet each other.

It's in the third person, you, the church, greet one another with this holy kiss. I just want to make a comment very applicable to our day.

The holy kiss is really hard to do behind a mask. And in this day when we have to be careful, we don't want to embrace or shake hands because of obvious reasons, and the risk of spreading

COVID, if indeed COVID is a risk with you, or with me, or anything else. Now, I'm not saying take off a mask, and I'm not saying you have to start shaking hands, or do anything outside of your comfort level, given the times in which we are now living.

Acts 17 28 says God has us in these times. I'm not saying anything like that. And in this church, we've been able to accommodate just about every level of sensitivity regarding masks, and distance, and everything else.

And I praise God for that. But I do make the point that what the apostle

Paul's saying here about the holy kiss, this tactile, this physical greeting, it's really hard to do behind a mask.

It's hard for me to see the smile or the sadness.

I know that the prayers are not affected by that. I know that the love and the bonds that we have in Christ are still just as strong.

And again, we don't tell you to violate your conscience, your health needs, or anything else.

But if the Bible is truly a rule of all practice and faith, and it is, we need to pray that these physical barriers become a thing of the past, and soon.

Because brethren, I want to shake your hand. I want to feel that shoulder -to -shoulder hug.

And I know you do too. These are God's times that he has us in, and I only put that out there, that we need to pray.

Brothers, pray for us. We need to pray this comes to an end. You know, in the

Philippines, we were there in 2013. Conley and Tom Jaton, he was still at the church at the time, we went there and did some tour, checked out the youth camp that we've been supporting.

And one day I had the whole day preaching at Cabal Reform Baptist Church. I preached in the morning, and as we were getting ready to preach for the community service, they had the lunch in between.

And after I had lunch, this young Filipino lad looked like a kind of a street urchin, if you will. And when he found out that I was the pastor who preached and was going to preach again, he came to me, and he walked right up to me, and he took my hand in his hands, and he brought my hand to his forehead as he bowed down, and he touched it, touched my hand to his forehead.

It was a sign of respect, a sign of love. I was taking him back a little bit, and there's a name for it, and I can't pronounce it, and I'm not going to try.

It's common in the Philippines. But it meant something. It wasn't just a handshake.

It was a sign of respect, even admiration, not for me, but for the Lord whom I preached that morning and was going to preach that afternoon.

That kind of physical, so elevated, and so important.

We need to pray. We need to pray that we can once again come together in that way. So there's prayer, without which the church is no church.

There's the greeting. There's a way of greeting one another in Christ, this holy kiss, translated into our times, translated into our day.

And then he says, I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read before all the brothers.

Now, this is something amazing. This is an amazing statement. He means to have it read out loud.

The word has a prefix, A -N -A, if you will, from the Greek. Alpha, new, alpha.

Anna, gnosko. The word gnosko could just mean to read it, but Anna means to stand and read it aloud.

It elevates that word. The way stasis just means to stand when it has

Anna before it. Do you know what it means? Anna stasis? It's elevated. It means the resurrection.

So Paul means something more formal here. He means something more profound than just reading it.

He means stand and read God's holy word before the assembly. That's an amazing statement in another way.

He's putting them under oath. He's probably speaking to the elders, to the pastors, to the ones who would stand and read this to the assembled people.

But he says, I put you under oath. Some people wonder, does Paul not know what

Jesus said about oaths? So do not swear by heaven and earth. Do not take any oath at all, said the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Wasn't Paul aware of that? Of course he was. There's no conflict here.

Do you see the difference? Paul didn't say, I'm taking an oath that I'm going to make sure you read this.

He said, I put you under oath. Why is that so amazing?

Well, one to put someone under oath implies a great authority.

This is apostolic authority at its highest level. Even Jesus, when the high priest said to him,

I adjure you, I put you under oath. I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of the living

God. Even Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, then answered.

Because of the human authority of the high priest. The high priest put him under oath.

And Jesus answered. Paul, with apostolic authority, before the

Lord Jesus Christ himself, put them under oath. Do you see how important scripture is? We've added that.

What the Puritans would call a dumb reading. By dumb, they didn't mean anything pejorative or silly. They just meant it was a reading without comment.

And in that tradition, we started that a few months ago. Going sequentially through the Bible, Old and New Testament readings as we did this morning.

Do you know how important scripture is? We're preaching from scripture this morning. These four verses,

I'm trying to apply them to you, but it's still the scripture that is being brought to bear. Paul puts them under oath.

Apostolic authority showing the importance of this. It shows that Paul understood that he wrote by inspiration of and on behalf of God.

He's not just saying, well, you know, it'd really be a cool thing if you'd read this aloud. He's talking about scripture in general.

And he understands that the scriptures he's speaking of here are inspired by God. It is

God's word to the church, and this is why it's so elevated and so important. Peter wrote of this in 2

Peter 3, 15 and 16, where he speaks of Paul's letters as standing alongside the quote, under other scriptures.

So it's amazing because of the authority that Paul indicates he has here when he puts them under oath. They are indeed under oath.

Your pastors, Conley and myself, we are under oath by the Lord Jesus Christ as we would come to this pulpit to preach to you the word of God.

To read it as we do, just read the words, to preach it as I'm trying to do now. It's an oath.

You didn't put me under this oath. You didn't put Conley under this oath. It's an oath that the Lord Jesus Christ himself, went through the apostle

Paul, for example, said, I've not withheld from you the whole counsel of God. I preached it all to you.

So important. It indicates the deity and the authority of Jesus Christ himself.

He didn't say because Jesus did some good things we want to follow his ways. No, he's speaking of the living resurrected

Lord. That by his authority before the Lord Jesus Christ himself, he put them under oath.

To read that aloud. Paul shows that Jesus is alive.

He's resurrected and he's watching and he's concerned for his church. They would have things done in this way.

Paul's so confidently speaking under inspiration of God and his Holy Spirit.

And that confidence that attaches to a certainty that the word has power to change hearts, to transform lives.

The gospel lays at the core of everything he did is the power of God for salvation and the power of God to expose the intentions of the heart.

That's what the word of God does. It has the power to enable obedience in those who by seeking his will are determined to honor him by obeying his son's word to us.

A church without scripture. No church at all. Hebrews 4 .12

says, for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

So it breaks all the artificial divisions between people. It shows us what is truly in our hearts.

What we really think. It exposes our conscience to ourselves. And so Paul when he speaks of the church in worship, prayer, proper greeting, and scripture, sola scriptura,

God's will revealed to us in the scripture. God's word read to you. God's word preached to you.

And finally he says the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. The church is in God's presence.

I spoke earlier and asked do you believe in the power of prayer? Do you believe when you pray that God's ear is upon your individual prayer and our prayers together?

I ask in the same vein, do you believe that Jesus Christ is with us?

He says the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And here's the most important aspect of the church.

That when we gather together, Jesus said we're two or three gathered in my name. There I am in the midst of them.

Do you believe? Do you know? Have you ever felt the presence of Jesus Christ here by his attending spirit?

By the spirit of God who binds us together. Do you know and believe and have you ever really felt that presence of the spirit here?

He says the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Think about this for a moment. It sounds so common.

He says it in so many letters. He started this letter with grace. He ends it with grace. F .F. Bruce says that grace is the alpha and omega of Paul's letters.

Was he just tossing it out there? I think we'd all say no. He's not just tossing out there. Every word is intentional.

The law came through Moses says John in his gospel, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ as John 1 17.

Titus 2 11 says when the grace of God appeared, bring salvation. What's the grace of God?

It's Jesus Christ. He is the grace of God. He's the grace of God personified. He's the grace of God in human form as God the

Son, the eternal Son of God. He is the grace of God. He's the bearer of God's grace.

He's the agent of God's grace. You know the Aaronic priest with which we end the day and the afternoon, the

Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Be gracious to you. God declares himself as the

God of grace. To Moses, he declared himself the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious. God is

God. Grace is God's nature. He says by his grace you have been saved. That's Ephesians 2 9.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with you. Jesus walks among the seven lampstands.

You read of that in Revelation chapter 1. What does that mean? What means he has authority of his church?

It means he's aware of everything that's happening in his church. It means in the context of 1

Thessalonians 5 28, he's with his church. With us this morning, with us this afternoon, if we look by his will and meet and grace we should meet again.

He says it's an actual grace. Not just an idea, not just a thought. It's an actual grace and his actual presence with us.

Jesus Christ, the grace of God. In Luke chapter 4 verse 22, it says, and all spoke well of him, of Jesus, and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

He spoke as God speak. He spoke as God. Zechariah 1 13. The Lord entered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.

Jesus Christ is God. And Jesus Christ with us as we gather together in worship.

Well, this is the end of the Thessalonian letter. And it tells us much about our worship and what

God expects of it. How we're to meet, what we're to do. It doesn't give us every detail.

It doesn't tell us what time to come together. It doesn't tell us when to read the scripture and when to pray and exactly what to pray for.

But it does tell us these things. It tells us we must pray.

It tells us that we must in some way that indicates our common bond of faith in Jesus Christ greet one another.

It tells us that scripture is the core of all we do. And the apostle Paul tells us that the grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ is with us as we gather, even as Jesus Christ himself promised.

So I ask you, when we pray, are you with us?

Many people today have become convinced and before the pandemic they were already convinced that they could worship at home.

They said, well, I can pray and God hears me because I believe in Jesus. That's true enough. And all

I need to hear the scripture is I could turn on a YouTube or find a live stream somewhere.

Sometimes that's what we had to do. But that's not what the apostle Paul is saying here.

He's saying come together, pray together, gather around God's word together, and the grace of the

Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And may it be that way for us in this place even today.

And so long as the Lord tarries, may he find us gathering in accord with what the apostle Paul says at the end of this letter.

Amen. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you again for the day that you've given us, for the time that we have together, and for these instructions that we get from the apostle

Paul. And I pray that you would find your church always in prayer and greeting one another holy in holy ways in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And that your word would always be up before us, your son Jesus Christ always with us.

And we thank you for these promises and pray that we would follow what is taught here.