Transformation While Awaiting Christ

Well, we continue this morning preaching through the book of 2nd Thessalonians, having a few weeks ago finished going through 1st

Thessalonians. The two letters to the Thessalonians are in many ways the most distinctly eschatological in the

New Testament. Eschatological simply means the study of end things or end times. So Jesus' message, of course, in Matthew 24 -25 is eschatological.

The book of Revelation is obviously eschatological, but in the epistles, in the letters, 1st and 2nd

Thessalonians are the most distinctly that way. Now this is important as we prepare ourselves to hear just two verses from 2nd

Thessalonians, which we'll read in a moment, because it's the prophets who looked ahead to Jesus Christ.

It's the Gospels that describe the life, death, and burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the epistles, the letters, which tell us the ramifications, the consequences, the necessary response of God's people.

And in this series, the response of God's people has been sort of characterized by this term that we've been using, awaiting

Christ. What do God's people do as they wait for Jesus Christ's return,

His second coming? And God willing, the passage this morning, just 2nd

Thessalonians 1, 11, and 12, will help us in that regard. So if you please stand for the reading of God's Word, we'll read 2nd

Thessalonians chapter 1. I'll start at verse 5, and then like I said, we will preach verses 11 and 12.

It's the Word of God. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering.

Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted, as well as to us, when the

Lord Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know

God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the

Lord, and from the glory of His might, when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

Verse 11 begins the preaching for this morning. To this end, we always pray for you, that our

God may make you worthy of His calling, and may fulfill every resolve for good, and every work of faith by His power, so that the name of our

Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God, and the

Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless the reading, and now be at His will the proclamation of His word.

Please be seated. Have you ever been in a situation where you are waiting for the return of someone in authority, and you have some idea, or perhaps perhaps even no idea, what they're going to think, and how they're going to react when they come?

Well, I was in that situation once with my brother, and that was way back in the summer of 1972.

So I just turned 17, and at 17 of course you're old enough to know better. You're not old enough or mature enough to keep from refraining from doing what is not better.

Well, my parents left for a trip together, and left my brother, who's the elder, he's two years older, in charge, and gave us a long list of chores to do, which was my dad's characteristic way of keeping us busy and out of trouble.

Well, while they were away, and while we had this time on our own to do the things that my parents, my dad especially, had told us to do, my brother's friend, his name was

Terry, he came by, and he brought with him a couple of BB guns. Now what do you do with BB guns but shoot them?

And so we're in the backyard shooting at innocuous targets against the fence, and being very safe, and being kids, 17 years old and 19 year old, my brother, the one who was in charge by the way, what did we do but decide to have a

BB gun war? And so I called a friend so that the armies would be even two and two. We had one

BB gun per army, and a canister full of BBs, and we just shot the dickens out of each other.

I mean we had welts all over, and my sister spent her time wisely in a room with the door locked, and wanted nothing to do with what her brothers had decided to do while the parents were away.

Well, the second day of battle was engaged, and at one point my brother called a truce, and I came running out, and I said why, and I was glad for the truce.

I had a lot of welts on me. We were not merciful in these BBs with each other.

And he said well, you know, somebody's coming. We've got this long list of chores to do, and all we've been doing is terrorizing my sister, and shooting at each other with these

BBs, and mom and dad are coming home, and they're gonna want to know what we've been doing.

We've got this long list of chores, so we better get moving. Well, we got moving pretty quickly as we thought of my dad and his response to what's been going on, and we drafted my sister's help, and boy, she extracted a price from us to keep quiet about a number of things, but we got things going, and along came my parents, and I won't go into much detail about the response, but there we were waiting for the return of authority, and literally quaking in our boots with this list not done, and damaged to our bodies and other things with the

BBs, which we should never have been playing with in the first place. What do you do as you're awaiting the return?

Well, this is one of the questions we have that is answered in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, and in the two verses

I read at the end of this, to this end we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power so that the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the

Lord Jesus Christ. What do we do? What is the church to be about?

What are you to be about as we await the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, this authority that's infinitely greater than the authority that my parents had, and what is expected of us?

What is going on? What should be going on in Luke 18 in the parable of the unjust judge?

At the end of that parable Jesus Christ says, but when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?

Will he find his people praying faithfully? Will he find his people living for God and for Christ's glory?

This is part of the answer that we have here in these two verses, this short prayer at the end of chapter 1 of 2

Thessalonians. Let's go through this. Let's understand what the

Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is praying for. Let's understand these verses in their context and see what is happening and what we should be happening with me and with you as we await

Christ's return. Not quaking in our boots as my brother, and I properly were because we were in some trouble, and we'd done some wrong things but for Jesus Christ to return and having been glorified in his people, in you, and us in him, as we await his return, and await in a way that is in accordance with his word.

Let's look at these verses and understand some of what they say, and then let's try and see how they apply to us this day.

It starts out with, to this end we always pray for you, to this end. Now in our

ESV, our English Standard Version of the Bible, it sounds like, or it could be taken up, to this end we always pray for you, and then that end for which they pray is then explained, and that is somewhat true, that it goes prospectively, it goes forward into the rest of verse 11 and then verse 12.

But our New King James Version, and even the NIV actually get that a little bit better because the New King James says, therefore we always pray for you, and the

NIV says, with this in mind, and I like that better, and I want you to think of it this way because with this in mind takes us up to where I started the reading, verse 5 through verse 10.

With those things in mind, the Apostle Paul then makes this prayer. What are those things in mind?

With this in mind, therefore, taking us up to verse 5 through 10. Now we're not going to preach that whole thing again, but in essence, just to put it in a word, it's

Jesus's return. It's the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to collect his people.

It's the Lord Jesus Christ coming at the command of God the Father, coming in the clouds in glory to return and bring his people to himself.

In a word, also to see what his people have been up to. Not that he doesn't know.

To this end, we always pray for you. What motivates this prayer? It's the coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and that answers a question for us very quickly, and very profoundly, and very clearly.

What are we to be doing as we await the Lord's return? Well, first, believing that he will return.

As the angel told the apostles in Acts chapter 1, he will return in the same way that you saw him leave.

When they saw him ascend on a cloud back to the Father, he will return in the same way, much as the

Apostle Paul says he will come back on the clouds with all his angels, with all his saints. What are we to be doing?

What does the Apostle Paul pray for? How are we to be found? He says we always pray for you.

This is a constant prayer, not meaning every minute of the day. He has other things to do, obviously, as do we all, but his prayers are consistent for them.

And what does he pray? He prays that God would make them worthy of his calling and would fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.

So this is the nature of the prayer. Because God is going to send his

Son, because of the return, the impending return, the soon return of the Lord Jesus Christ, the

Apostle Paul prays that in the here and now, in this life, God would make worthy those whom he has called, making you worthy of his calling for this cause, for this purpose.

Not just words. It's an actual correspondence initiated by personal contact with them.

He knows what they're going through, and he's praying for them that as they go through the persecutions and the afflictions that were mentioned earlier in this and the previous epistle, that God would continue to make them worthy of the calling with which they were called.

Now, this is an incredible thing to stop and think about for a moment. As we await for Christ's return, what is

God doing in his people? Well, should his people be looking for the signs of his return, reading the headlines, and trying to tie them to the symbolic language of the book of Revelation?

No, none of that. What do we do with his return in that regard? We believe he will return, and we understand that that return will come at a moment when we don't know.

So as we always say, and I mean this in all seriousness, my next breath could not come because the Lord Jesus Christ will return, and that's the end of all history.

We believe that. That's first. That's primary. What do we be found doing?

What is happening during this time? Looking at the headlines? No, I've already talked about that.

Living for Christ, being worthy of the calling by which we've been called, to use the language of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1.

It is God who is making you worthy. Now, this is hard language for we in reformed and conservative circles to say that you are worthy of something.

You say, no, I'm not worthy. I'm just a lousy sinner saved by grace. Well, we're all sinners saved by grace, and only by grace can you be saved.

And yet, and yet, while we're awaiting Christ's return, what is

God doing in his people? What is God doing with you? This is hard to deal with.

It's going to make me think that we're all going to become seated. We're going to become big heads. We're going to become proud of ourselves.

No, none of that. Plain words of the Scripture. The Apostle Paul, by inspiration of God's Spirit, says he prays for this purpose, that God makes you worthy of the calling by which you've been called.

Again, I use the language of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1. That's exactly what Paul says to the Ephesians, therefore walk worthy of the calling by which you've been called.

After three chapters of good theology, after three chapters of all the grace and glory to God, and all thanks to him for the salvation we have, and the ability to walk in the ways of Christ, all that in first three chapters of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1, what we call the application, if you will.

He says, walk worthy of the calling by which you've been called. And so it gives you no chance to say, well

I'm just a worm who should never stop suffering. I'm not worthy of anything, therefore.

No, but that's not what the Bible says. The Apostle Paul says to the Ephesians to walk worthy, and here in 2nd

Thessalonians chapter 1 in verse 11, it says God is making you worthy. Because you're worth making worthy?

Of course not. Because God, by his own sovereign design, those whom he has called before the foundation of the world, that's

Ephesians chapter 1 verses 3 and 4, those who are in Christ because he placed you in Christ, he will make worthy of the calling.

That's the calling for salvation. That's the faith that he has given you to believe all of God. Paul prays that he makes you worthy of this calling.

You know in chapter 4 verse 1 of Ephesians, that word worthy is the same one we have here in 2nd

Thessalonians, but it's used as an adverb. And as an adverb, it's interesting because there it means to bring something into equilibrium.

The pans on a scale then are brought together so that they're perfectly level. And here is this worthiness.

As we're brought more and more to the image of Christ Jesus, as you follow more and more his word, as you await his return, not looking at the mountains or the clouds or the skies or the signs, looking to his word in prayer, submission to his spirit, by availing yourself of the means of grace, the community of the church, the

Lord's table, Bible study, hearing the word of God preached, becoming more like Jesus Christ by learning more about him.

This is what it means. This is how God is making you worthy of his calling. You have to deal with it, brothers.

It doesn't mean that you're prideful. It doesn't mean that you suddenly said, well,

God's so impressed with me that I'm worthy that that's why he must have chosen me. None of that is implied here.

It's all by the grace of God. It's by the powerful working of his spirit. And the scripture is plain and clear that when you're called to walk worthy of the calling by which you've been called, when the

Apostle Paul says here in 2nd Thessalonians, it is God who's making you worthy. Brethren, God is making you worthy of the calling by which you've been called.

Now the worthy one is Jesus Christ. We know that. That's God's only beloved Son. And yet we must believe because the scripture says it so plainly.

He's making you worthy. Be worthy of this calling. This is what we're to be doing as we await faithfully

Jesus Christ and his return. So that's first. Deal with the fact that God is making you worthy.

Not that he's impressed with you. I keep having to apologize for that. But hard words for many of us.

And why is it hard? Because if you're worthy, that inheres upon you a certain obligation then to do something with that worthiness that God is working in you.

Is it just to make you a better person? Is it just to make you superior spiritually to me or someone else?

Of course not. It's so that you would serve Christ. Serve Christ in worship.

Serve Christ in ministry. Serve Christ in your prayers with others. Serve Christ in the work of the church.

We have no room here to say, well, I'd love to serve. I would love to work.

I have so many things I would do for Jesus Christ. I'm just waiting until I feel like I'm worth doing any of this.

Well, how you feel makes no difference to anyone, least of all God and what his word says.

It says here that God is making you worthy. It says here that God is preparing you for the work now and for Jesus Christ's return and for the glory that we'll have when he calls him to himself.

Yes, all that. That's good eschatology. That's good in things. But what are we to be doing as we await that return?

Being made worthy by God himself. He goes on, and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.

What's a resolve for good? Resolve translates a

Greek word, eudokia, which means good pleasure. And it's used only a few times in the

New Testament. I think it's only nine times in the New Testament. Six of God. God's good pleasure.

God's good pleasure in saving sinners. God's good pleasure, his sovereign free will in determining what he will do and when he will do it and why he will do it.

God's good pleasure. But three times it's used of those who are in Christ Jesus.

And here is one of them. It says every resolve, but that word is eudokia, so it could say every good pleasure.

And I think the only reason they said resolve instead of the way I just said it is so that it doesn't say every good pleasure for good.

It sounds redundant. Who's good pleasure? Whose good pleasure is in view?

Again, you're so afraid of being prideful, but this is not pride.

It says plainly that the resolve for good is yours. This is the new birth.

This is the new heart. That's Ezekiel 36 24. So Jesus Christ says you must be born again.

This is a work of God's Spirit. Yes, it's all of God. It's none of you. You do not want to resolve for good in your natural state, but by God's conversion, by God's transformation, by God giving you the new heart to believe, you have a good pleasure.

And that word six out of the nine times used of God. So what does it mean as we await

Christ? It means that you have a divine, as it were, good pleasure.

You want what God wants. You look to the scripture, and when it shows you what you should be doing, you say

I want to do this. I want to be this way. I want to repent of that sin.

That's my good pleasure to repent and know God's forgiveness and put that one behind me to mortify that sin that besetting sin as we like to say.

That's God's good pleasure. That's your resolve for good. That's your desire to please

God as he makes you worthy. Makes you worthy. This is one of Paul's stated purposes in the prayer.

The other one is every work of faith by his power. Now after what we said about every resolve, every good pleasure for good, every work of faith by his power should flow pretty simply to us, right?

I mean, that's pretty easy to understand. What is a work of faith? A work of faith is something we do by faith to please

God. It's to step out in faith. It's to trust God. This might not seem logical. The world might not think that it's a good way to go, for example, contributing to your church.

Who on earth gives 10 % of everything they make and more if we go into a lecture or a sermon on giving?

It would have to be more. That doesn't make any sense. It's a work of faith.

It's a work of faith. It's like the street ministry where we take the abuse, the verbal abuse that was so often is thrown at us.

That's a work of faith because standing for something that we believe God would stand for. Every work of faith.

Paul says that God makes us worthy of his calling and that God fulfills. He gets all the glory, every good pleasure because he gave you the good pleasure.

He gave you his good pleasure so that you would have pleasure in what pleases him. That sounds redundant.

It sounds repetitive, but that's what is meant here. And every work of faith by his power. All that is not of faith is sin, says the

Apostle Paul to the Romans. Without faith it is impossible to please God, says the Apostle to the

Hebrews in Hebrews 11 6. And it is God who fulfills. It is God who completes.

It is God who gives us these works. That's Ephesians 2 10. The works that were laid out in advance that we may walk in them.

All this as we await Christ. Again, what are we to be doing?

We're to be made worthy. We're to be worthy of the calling by which we've been called, which God is doing and God fulfilling your good pleasure and God fulfilling our works of faith by his power and his power alone.

What is that power? What power is he working in you as he makes you worthy of the calling by which you've been called?

What is that calling? That calling is the calling to salvation in Jesus Christ. How can you be worthy of that? By his power.

Ephesians 1 19 says that the power that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead is the same power he works toward us who believe.

Now the prepositions are important. In Christ when he raised him, toward us as we walk in this life.

The Apostle Paul there means much what he means here. How do we accomplish God's will? How do we accomplish his good pleasure?

Well, as I said, first of all, it's conversion to Christ. It's repentance for your sin. It's faith in what he did on the cross.

It's coming to him for forgiveness and knowing the power of the Holy Spirit within.

And by that your works of faith are something that work us into worthiness, the worthiness that God is working in you.

This is how he does it. By fulfilling your works, by fulfilling your faith, by growing your faith.

And all this while we await Christ in his return. This is the Apostle Paul's prayer. To this end, with this in mind, therefore, because Christ is returning,

Paul prays that God will continue to make you worthy of this calling and that as he continues to make you worthy, as he balances the scales, as it were, and brings you from where you were up closer to Christ and more on a level with him.

Will we be level with him ever? No, never. It cannot be. So we can think of the scales as simply coming up and coming up and coming up.

Now, this is not the Roman Catholic idea where there's a cup that gets filled with righteous deeds, and when you see God, we find out if you had enough to make it to heaven.

That's not what we're saying. It's only a picture. It's only a word picture. That as we grow in holiness, that scale comes up and more into equilibrium, closer to the image of Christ.

That is not something that we do to earn salvation. It's not righteousness that gets added to us.

For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That's a fact. That's a fait accompli, as we say. Apostle Paul is praying for God to make us worthy, to God make you worthy, and strip away the excuses that I can't serve

Christ in the church, I can't do this or that because I'm unworthy. If you say you're unworthy, dear ones, you have to stop and look at this scripture and saying, well,

God is not able to accomplish this in me because I'm so low or whatever you want to say about it.

I'm so far down here that even God by the power he worked in Christ, and he's working toward me, cannot lift me up into worthiness in his sight.

Well, then you're denying scripture. You're denying what is said so plainly here.

You're saying you're more powerful than God, and if this is your attitude, if you have this kind of thought,

I would ask you to repent of such false humility, but more importantly for going against what the scripture says.

And how do we cure such a thing? Do you have that kind of an attitude? Have you thought that before? That I'd only serve when

I'm accomplishing this, when I get to this point, when I've repented of this many sins, when I'm this holy?

Those are all your own constructs. You need to repent of that. You need to repent of that this day.

What would the church be if everyone looked at this, and other places where this worthiness that God is working you is mentioned in the other epistles, but right here, and said, well if God is making me worthy, then

I'm worthy indeed. If God is doing it for his glory, we'll come to that in verse 12. If God is doing this for his purposes, then indeed he must have done it, and I have some response that is necessary.

I would suggest you come forward. I would suggest you volunteer. I would suggest you step out in faith even now.

For all the activities that this church is trying to expand into, good gospel activities.

We're not going 14, 15, 20 directions, and just being busy. I believe we've done a circumspect, and a wise job of being strategic, and placing ourselves where we really think we need to be, where we would please

Christ the most. You need to come forward. Why? Because God is making you worthy, and this is a resolve for good work, a good pleasure for good, and a work of faith.

What would this church be if we couldn't get in, if we had so many volunteers, that we had to actually have some step back?

Have you ever seen that comedy sort of thing? Where everybody, the soldiers are all standing in line, and the sergeant asks for volunteers for a tough job, like to clean latrines or something like that, and 15 guys step back, and the one guy stepped forward, or left forward, he stepped forward, because everybody else stepped back.

What would it be like in the church if everyone stepped forward and said, God has made me worthy, and God has made works that he prepared in advance that I should walk in them, and if God has made me worthy, if in God's view,

I can do this, and he's pleased with it, as imperfect as my results are, as imperfect as my effort is, is what it says.

There's another purpose to this prayer. The first thing that Paul says is this two -fold thing about God making us worthy for resolve and works of faith.

The second one is that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified you and you in him according to the grace of God and the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's some incredible words.

How is Jesus Christ glorified? Again, we can't put our hands over our head and say, well,

God's going to smite me for being so bad, because God is making you worthy, and God, the

Scripture says, is glorifying his Son, Jesus Christ, in you and you in him.

Now Jesus Christ himself had much to say about this. In John chapter 17 and verse 10.

I'll go back to verse 9. I am praying for them. He means the twelve, the eleven disciples at that point.

I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

Now listen to verse 10, the words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

You say, what? Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the second person of the

Trinity, God himself is glorified in, who'd it say?

I'm glorified in them. Brethren, you could put your name in that.

If you're in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've repented of your sins and by faith come to him for forgiveness, and known that forgiveness by the working of the

Holy Spirit within you, your name belongs there. All this wraps up as we're waiting for Christ, as God is making you worthy.

What is God doing? Well, he's making you worthy. We've talked about that. He's glorifying his

Son, Jesus Christ, in you, and you in him. The name of the

Lord Jesus Christ, glorified. John chapter 15 verse 8, as Jesus Christ speaks about himself being the vine, and we the branches.

He's the true vine, and how is God glorified? What does he say? What does the Lord Jesus himself say?

When you produce much fruit. Can we put this together with what we have in 2

Thessalonians? Yes, we can. Why do you produce any fruit? Because you're in Jesus Christ.

How do you produce fruit in Jesus Christ? Well, by faithfulness to his word, by study of his word, again availing yourself of the means of grace.

But back to 2 Thessalonians in verse 10. Because God is making you worthy.

God is doing a work in you. God began a work in you. He will complete it until the day of Christ. Jesus, that's

Philippians chapter 2 verse 13, is God who's doing all this work, and who gets the glory for it?

God. And how is God glorifying his son Jesus Christ? His son who came to earth.

God in the flesh. How is that one being glorified? By the works that we do.

Because God making us worthy. By the works that we do. Because God gave us the faith. By the works that we do.

By our own good pleasure. Because God changed your heart and gave you a good pleasure that matches as close as is humanly possible his good pleasure.

So that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in you. That name which the book of Philippians in chapter 2 says, above all names, that the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and confess that Jesus is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. The name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Apostle Paul's inspired prayer. And what's it based upon? What is he thinking of?

What is the thing that led him to this prayer? Verses 5 through 10.

Do not forget the impending return of Jesus Christ. Leads the

Apostle Paul to pray that we would do the works that God would have us to do as he makes us worthy of these works.

And in that, the purpose of God in glorifying Jesus Christ would be fulfilled and satisfied.

Christ glorified in what we do, and we in him. And all this according to the grace of our

God and the Lord Jesus Christ. For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves, not of works, so that no one can boast.

It is the gift of God. What is the gift? Well, it's not the grace of God. The grace of God is God's nature.

The gift of God is the faith. Something foreign to all of us before we're converted.

You're not born with faith. You don't put your faith in Jesus Christ in that way. God gives you faith.

And then if you will, you can put it in Jesus Christ. And I don't like that term too well, put my faith in Jesus.

But as long as we understand that if you do put your faith in Jesus Christ, your faith came from God and his

Spirit. As Jesus said, you must be born again. Now if we can have that as a starting assumption, then yes, put your faith in Jesus.

But then it's not put your faith in Jesus. You put it there because God made you able to, made you want to.

He made you want that good pleasure. Keep your faith in him. Both divine persons are here named according to the grace of God and the

Lord Jesus Christ. A gracious God who by his grace makes possible what he requires.

It's Augustine's famous prayer, Lord provide what thou commandest and then

I will do. I'm sorry I messed up the quote. Well anyway,

Augustine prayed that he can do what God would have him to do because God provides the ability to do it.

And by the time we get out for lunch, I'll remember what the exact quote. But that is what Augustine said, a gracious God who by his grace makes possible what he requires.

Are we worthy of the calling by which we've been called? By God's grace and by God's perspective.

And when God looks at you being in his Son Jesus Christ, the resounding answer must be yes.

Without pride for ourselves because the glory goes to Jesus Christ, the prayer makes that so crystal clear. Don't fear it.

Don't fear that you're taking anything from God because God who won't share his glory with another, says the prophet

Isaiah, he won't give his glory to any but himself. He is jealous of his glory in a way that he's jealous of hardly any other attribute that he has.

He shares his glory with those who are in his Son Jesus Christ because of Jesus Christ. Colossians chapter 1 verses 11 and 12 address this.

The same apostle Paul says, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the

Father who has qualified you, can we say made you worthy, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

And finally 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 26. The apostle Paul says, consider your calling brothers.

Not many of you are of any account in the world's eyes, much less God's, my words. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are.

Now all of us can fit at some level in those descriptions, can we not? So that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the

Lord. I feared when I began preparations for this message, and I saw that according to the scripture

I had to call out to you your worthiness because of God's working, because God is doing it.

I feared that in our circles, our conservative reform circles, we're so concerned, rightly concerned, that all glory goes to God.

And then we understand that nothing we do has any meaning outside of faith in Christ Jesus, and work's done to please

God because of that faith. And yet I feared a bit. What would be the response of me from the scripture, so speaking as it were for God, which is what preaching is, and calling out your worthiness?

Is it not to God's glory, just as the Apostle Paul says? And is God not so glorified when a miserable sinner like myself and like yourself is raised up from the cesspool of our sin and our depravity, and put in Christ Jesus because he gave you faith to believe.

And then this same God who would do such a thing as that would work worthiness in you, and look upon you, and say well not because of anything in you, we have to keep apologizing, don't we?

We have to keep saying that. But he looks at you because you're in his son Jesus Christ, the worthy one, and those in him

God loves just as he loves Jesus Christ. It's a hard thing to deal with that God is working this in you.

And it's hard because it takes away the excuses. It makes it sinful, actually, to not step forward in faith, to not do the good works, to deny that God has worked his good pleasure in you, so that the

Apostles Paul prayer then is almost meaningless. May it never be so.

Trust God. Trust God. There's much to do as we await

Christ's return. And like it or not, God is making you and has made you worthy of it because of his son

Jesus Christ in whom we are glorified by our obedience to him. Amen. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks again that we can come to you, and if we can look to your word and understand,

Father, your view of all things, not least of all us. Father, we thank you that you are indeed making a people worthy, that you're indeed bringing a people into closer conformity with the image of Christ Jesus, your son.

And so we thank you for this, and we pray that we would step forth in faith and confidence. Confidence, Lord, in you and your spirit and what you have done for us in Christ Jesus our