Closing Blessing
2 Thessalonians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Call to Worship
Call to Worship
Praise Yah! Sing to Yahweh a new song, His praise in the assembly of the holy ones.
Let Israel be glad in his Maker; Let the sons of Zion rejoice in their King.
Let them praise His name with dancing; With tambourine and lyre let them sing praises to Him.
For Yahweh takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.
Let the holy ones exult in glory; Let them sing for joy on their beds.
Let the exaltations of God be in their throats, And a two-edged sword in their hand,
To execute vengeance on the nations And punishments on the peoples,
To bind their kings with chains And their honored men with fetters of iron,
To execute on them the judgment written; This is the majesty of all His holy ones. Praise Yah!
Old Testament
Old Testament
“Now as for you, son of man, I have given you as a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a word from My mouth and give them warning from Me.
“When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand.
“But as for you, if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life.
“Now as for you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus you have spoken, saying, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we are rotting away in them; how then can we live?” ’
“Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares Lord Yahweh, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’
New Testament
New Testament
“Now if your brother sins, go and show him his fault, between you and him alone; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
“But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.
“And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as the Gentile and the tax collector.
“Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
“Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.
“For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
Intro:
Intro:
AG:
Grace” speaks of God’s attitude toward believers; “peace” speaks both of their standing with God and their experience of divine peace.
John Walvoord
TS: In the final few verses of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he closes with a final blessing of grace and peace.
In vs. 17, we see Paul’s traditional pattern of closing with his own hand instead of a scribe through whom he had written the letter.
The greeting is in my own hand—Paul, which is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write.
Paul closed most letters with his own hand in part to mark the authenticity… “This is the way I write”
RS: Today, we still need the grace and peace of the Lord.
I. Prays for God’s Peace
I. Prays for God’s Peace
Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually give you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!
Lord of Peace
(this is the only occurrence of this title addressing God)
God is often called the God of peace, but this is the only reference to Him as Lord of Peace.
In light of all the spiritual battles the Thessalonians had endured, this title of GOD was most meaningful.
He knew they would cherish the reminder that God, was the Lord of Peace.
He had begun the letter with “grace and peace” in 1:2, and now he closes the same way.
Peace in all Circumstances
He knew that the commands he had given would take more than human effort alone to fulfill.
It would be difficult for the idle people to humbly go back to work; it would be difficult for the annoyed believers to treat these people lovingly yet with a firm hand.
Paul did not expect them to do this in their own strength, so he prayed that the Lord of peace himself would give them peace at all times in all ways.
Peace from God is not the absence of all conflict. It is an abide inner peace in spite of it all.
It is confidence in all circumstances
It is based on the abiding presence of God with every believer.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Paul instructed the Philippians in overcoming anxiety
Stop dwelling on it.
Instead of remind ourselves over and over of the things which cause us anxiety, take these steps.
In prayer and petition with thanksgiving make our requests to God.
Bring your burdens to the Lord with grattitude in our hearts as we approach Him!
And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We bring our requests to God, and HE gives us inner tranquility. We know God is able and will do what is best for us.
“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
God’s peace guards our hearts and minds.
He “keeps watch over” us.
He removes anxiety, doubt, fear and distress.
He guards our innermost being with His peace.
Satan, the accuser delights in trying to keep us in anxiety. Resist him! We must lead our hearts to trust God completely and turn loose of our anxious thoughts.
Once we have let go of them, STOP going back to them!
Keep pressing forward.
Live in the present pushing for the future.
Lead your heart to remain in peace and make no room for Satan to drag us back into anxiety.
Lead your heart with the Word of God.
What the word has declared is absolute truth. Remember that!
II. Prays for God’s Presence
II. Prays for God’s Presence
Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually give you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!
So much is in the word, “Himself”
Paul could have asked for the Lord to send His angels to minister to them
He could have prayed for other ministers to come and carry on his ministry of encouragement.
Instead, he prayed for the Lord of Peace, HIMSELF to attend to their needs.
God’s Presence
God's presence promised and secured
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
– Jesus is "Immanuel... God with us." The incarnation itself is the down payment on presence.
teaching them to keep all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
– "I am with you always, to the end of the age." The Great Commission closes with a presence promise, not just a task.
John 14:16–18, 23
“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever;
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.
– Jesus promises the Spirit ("another Helper") so the disciples won't be left as orphans; He and the Father will "make our home" with the believer. Presence becomes internal and permanent, not just proximate.
As God’s children we are never alone
Scripture is full of such reassurances to specific people and to all of us.
The NT pattern is that God's presence isn't just comfort-as-feeling — it's the ground of peace and courage because it's :
covenantal and permanent (Hebrews 13:5, Matt 28:20),
He made unbreakable promises to us as His children
relationally intimate (John 14),
We have been adopted into His family and have all the blessings which come with them.
gives literal access (Heb 4:16).
We can come boldly into His presence
III. Prays for God’s Grace
III. Prays for God’s Grace
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Paul was an apostle of grace.
He taught grace in all of His letters and it was his pattern to open and close by pointing to God’s grace.
I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I get the impression something repeated so many times must be important.
The Greek word, charis, translated as grade is used approximately 150 times, Paul accounts for 95-105 of them (depending on whether or not you attribute Hebrews to him)
grace as unmerited favor, contrasted sharply with any system of human effort or works.
In Greek literature, gods were said to "appear" to rescue people from danger, and Paul deliberately borrows that language to say Christ appeared not to rescue from a temporal danger but to save people from their sins — grace as God moving toward us, not us climbing toward Him.
Grace extends far beyond just saving us.
Without grace there would be no calling, no justification, no Holy Spirit, and no sanctification — it's possible there would be no creation itself without it, since grace stands as the key element in God's entire redemptive purpose against the backdrop of the justice that would otherwise condemn.
When Paul says “grace to you” and “the grace of Christ be with you”, he is reminded that God has already promised them that!
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age,
Grace saved us
Salvation is the free gift of God
Freely given to us, but costly to Himself
Grace instructs us
to deny ungodliness
turn from sin
Saved by grace, not our effort to earn it, but also instructed by grace to stop sinning!
Sin and unrighteousness within us should disgust us!
We cannot compromise with it or excuse it.
Repent, Turn from it
To live righteously
Walk as Jesus walked.
He gives us victory over our wordliness
No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.
God’s grace makes righteousness possible for us. Walk in righteousness!
Peace and presence are both closely tied to grace.
Conc.
Conc.
Grace and peace, bookend to bookend
Point back to 1 Thessalonians 1:1
Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.
and 2 Thessalonians 1:2,
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
where the letters opened with "grace and peace." Now they close the same way. Everything taught in between — comfort about death, correction about the end times, instruction about order and work — sits inside that frame. The invitation: don't let this series end as information collected.
We will end where Paul ends it, back at grace and peace, and ask whether you're actually resting there or still working to earn a settledness only He gives.
Citation
Citation
APA (7th ed.)
Anthropic. (2026). Claude (Sept. 5 version) [Large language model].
