Biblical Text: 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12
“Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power; that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
All of life is a preliminary to the dawning of that day of the Lord, when He shall come riding on the clouds to claim His own. This place is not our home. We are pilgrims passing through, and we shall not rest until we rest IN HIM.
This is the truth of the gospel message. So when the church at Thessalonica swelled with a feverish, albeit unwholesome expectancy of the approach of God’s judgment day, Paul sat and penned a letter to dampen their premature fire and calm their anticipation. Nothing would hinder the spread of the gospel more than the premature expectation of Christ’s return. Paul had to remind them that, “we know not the day nor the hour when He shall appear”.
In the process of writing his epistle to the church at Thessalonica, four times Paul gushes forth in prayer, as if he is turning aside from his main thoughts. When the need for prayer presses upon you…stop everything and PRAY!
Our text is the first such prayer that Paul utters. Each of the prayers is an expression of the love for the saints of God. Listen:
“Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power; that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The second prayer is this:
“Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.”
And the third:
“The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and unto the patient waiting for Christ.”
And finally, summing it all up:
“The Lord of peace Himself give you peace always, by all means”.
These prayers are directed to the highest blessings: they are the epitome of tenderness and love of a true Christian teacher and friend who seeks to minister to God’s people. It’s a poor love that cannot express itself in prayer. And it would be a poor pastoral prayer that did not solicit the highest blessings for his people.
Let’s take a closer look at this first prayer Paul’s spirit compels him to lift in the presence of God’s people. First, Paul says, “We pray for you, that God would count you worthy of your calling…”. It becomes instantly obvious that Paul is focused on the future coming of Jesus Christ, and the Judgment.
Here, in this brief prayer, we are brought face to face with God’s future judgment of all people. The popular theme of our Christian faith today focus’s on the truth that “he who trusts in Jesus Christ will not come into condemnation, but has passed from death into life”. But Paul wants us to know that it is equally true that “judgment will begin at the house of God” and “The Lord will judge His people.” Those of us, who by virtue of our professed Christianity, stand nearest to God, can be sure that we will be searched by Him, through and through, as we stand in the revealing light of His holy presence. Every flaw…every corrupt speck…every sin, will be brought into startling prominence. Let no Christian who is a partaker of the covenant promise think that he will escape the righteous judgment of God. The great doctrine of forgiveness does not mean that He will allow our sin to remain on us, un-judged or un-avenged. God WILL judge us.
And what will God judge? Our calling!
Not our vocational duty to the community.
Not our church attendance record.
Not our diligence to serve in one auxiliary or another.
No!
God will judge the merits of our mission by the mainstay of our motivation.
God will judge the reality of our being summoned by HIM to be HIS!
Consider who calls. It is God Himself.
Consider HOW He calls. He calls us by the Gospel, by Jesus Christ.
That great voice of Jesus…so tender…so heart-melting…so vibrating with the invitation of love…that is the voice that summons us.
He summons us to holiness, or as Paul puts it later in 2 Thessalonians, “unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth.”
We are summoned by all the animating and restraining and impelling tones of the sacrifice and life of Jesus Christ.
We are summoned to a life of self-crucifixion.
We are summoned to bring our flesh into subjection to the Will of God.
We are summoned to aspire after God.
We are summoned to live a holy life according to Christ’s example.
A life of purity,
A life of sacrifice,
A life of righteousness.
The way is plain.
Christ says, “I die that you may live”.
Christ commands, “Live because I live, and come to live where I live”.
The same invitation that calls us to a life of righteousness will also call us to the throne room of God on judgment day.
Therefore, considering WHO summons us,
And by WHAT He summons,
And TO WHAT He calls us,
Are we not compelled to yield to the solemnest motives, the loftiest standards, and the most stringent obligations of life? Does not this mission merit our best response?
What sort of life will be counted WORTHY of His voice’s call? Will yours? Will mine? Right in our own communities, there are the most flagrant examples of professing Christians, whose lives are in outrageous discordance with the loftiness of the Word and the mighty motives of the summons they profess to obey. God calls us to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called!”
Self-examination is in order.
‘Does my life correspond to HIS Divine purpose in calling me to HIM?’
Can I say, “Lord, Thou art mine, and I am thine…and my life is a living witness of our marriage”.
Can we say, “Lord, I have banished self; I am full of God, and the life which I live in the flesh I live not to myself, but to Him that died for me”?
Here is the greatest characteristic and blessing of God’s call … that it not only summons us to holiness and to heaven, but reaches out a helping hand to get us there! It stands in stark contrast to all other voices, however noble…
The voice of conscience
The voice of reason
The voice of human ethics
The voice of intelligence
The voice of the ruling class.
They may call us….they may tug at our heart strings, but no hand is extended to help us. They may commission us to follow, but they cannot compel our hearts to heed.
They are all lofty voices, with no foundation, that merely leave us floundering in the swamp of sin.
But we have a God who not only TELLS us to be good, and watches to see if we will obey, but He also brings us the help we need to keep His commandments.
He is not just a voice to enjoin.
He is a Hand to LIFT.
“Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt”, says Augustine the ancient African. And therein is the blessing and glory of the gospel…that in its summons is the impelling power, which makes men able to BE what it beckons them to BECOME. Oh, that God would count us all worthy!
God will fulfill every desire that longs for goodness. But watch this…We are scarcely deserving of being called good if we do not desire to be BETTER! Aspiration must always precede performance in a growing Christian’s life. We must long for righteousness before we can be considered righteous. If a man knows nothing of the desire that stings and impels him to become better than he is…if he does not know what it means to say, “Oh wretched man that I am…who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”… what right does he have to call himself a Christian?
The essence of our walk with Christ is to hunger for the completeness that sin denies us. We live not only by admiration, faith, and love, but we live by HOPE. He who does not hunger and thirst after righteousness has yet to learn the first principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The true Christian, hungering for perfection, cries, “Forgetting the things that are behind, I reach forth unto the things that are before…” There is nothing in us to which God can attach himself. God cannot make us better if we do not desire to be better. Without our sincere desire for perfection, there is nothing on which God can lay hold of our hearts. If we shut our mouths tight and grit our teeth, how can God put food between our lips?
Desire goodness, saints….and God will make us good.
Bring a large vessel to the fountain…If you bring a little vessel you cannot gather a large supply. God’s manna lies around our ‘tent doors’, and He beckons us to gather!!!
God will fit us to be worthy of our calling.
He will answer our desires.
He will give energy to our faith;
Because His spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind which works all righteousness in believing hearts will complete His operation in us.
And, oh, the divine glory of our worthiness…”that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in YOU, and you in HIM.”
We are HIS workmanship.
We are HIS perfected saints.
We are the masterpiece of the Great Divine Artist…Jesus Christ.
Christ’s reputation is in our hands. Men will judge HIM by US. If we are worthy of our calling, people will be drawn to our Master by the faithfulness of our discipleship. We are the best evidence of the power of the Gospel. If it can change you and I, it can change anyone.
His glory shall exalt our limited, stained and fragmentary humanity into “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” and the sun of our souls shall be transformed into His own image.
Meditate on your calling.
Consider its method, its obligations, its powers.
Cherish your hope and desire to be like Jesus!
Cultivate the life of faith that works through love.
Live in the light of that solemn expectation that the Lord WILL judge His people.
Only then will the voice that summons us…welcome us.
And though we are stained and undeserving sinners, God shall proclaim…
“They have not defiled their garments, therefore they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy!”
