Worthy of The Kingdom of God
2 Thess. 1:11-12 BBBC #722 4/1/07
(Page 164, N. T.) (3,350)
Worthy Of The Kingdom of God
The Pony Express was a company that carried mail by a relay of horseback riders. It started in St. Joseph, Missouri and ended in Sacramento, California. If the weather and horses held out and the Indians held off, your letter would make that two-thousand-mile journey in a speedy ten days. But surprisingly enough, the Pony express was only in operation for about seventeen months because the telegraph lines were completed and their service was no longer needed.
It was a tough job. Riders would ride seventy-five to one hundred miles a day, changing horses every fifteen to twenty-five miles. Other than the mail, they only carried a small kit containing flour, cornmeal, and bacon. Their medical supplies consisted of turpentine, borax, and cream of tartar. To travel light and increase their speed, the men always rode in shirtsleeves, even during the fierce winter weather.
So how would you go about recruiting volunteers for such a hazardous job? An 1860 San Francisco newspaper carried this ad for the Pony Express: “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” Believe it or not, the Pony Express never had a shortage of riders. (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.)
This brings to mind that serving God is not a job for those whose spiritual life is out on the fringe. If you know Jesus as your Savior, God asks for your life ¾ your whole life, nothing but your whole life. It’s not like a short stint with the Pony Express Company. He wants to be the #1 priority, not something you do as a hobby or afterthought. No, God does not want you to just “tack your faith” in Jesus onto your life as it is. He does not want your faith to be nothing more than a “Sunday thing,” or something you call on only in the face of disaster, heartache, or discouragement. He expects, I should say He demands commitment at the highest possible level. So why should you not “step up to the plate” and include God in every aspect of your life?
At the same time God knows just how difficult it is for believers to live out their faith in a world that stands in direct opposition to God. He, above everyone else, realizes believers cannot do this in their strength, but only through the strength and power He supplies. To think we can do anything spiritual in our own strength ¾ is but pure foolishness, we cannot. So where does that leave us? The apostle Paul shares the answer in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12. The answer comes through a believer’s most powerful source, it comes through prayer. Paul says he, Silvanus and Timothy pray for the Thessalonian believers always. And what is their prayer?
· That the Thessalonians would live up to the awesome call God has placed on their lives.
· That God will supply all the power needed to fulfill their desire for goodness, and
· The purpose for all this is that the name of Jesus will be glorified in their lives.
Let’s begin with verse 11...
11 To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power,
As I read the opening of Paul’s prayer I wondered if this would have been the way I would have prayed. I concluded I would have asked God to allow their persecution and affliction to ease off. Paul does not appeal to remove the suffering. He only prays they will be “fit vessels” for the Master’s use. He was not praying in general like so many of us pray ¾ he was praying for their spiritual growth.
Dear ones, this should make us pause and consider our prayer lives, especially how we pray for one another. More often than not, we may be praying for the wrong things. It’s rare when prayer is asked for in a public gathering that the subject to pray about is “spiritual growth” or to help someone who is suffering to understand this is God’s plan. We’re quick to pray for the sick that they will be healed, the operation will go well, recovery will be short. We pray for jobs, educations, promotions.
None of these are necessarily wrong, but if you study God’s Word you’ll quickly learn this is not how Jesus prayed, this is not how Paul prayed. One commentator was “up front and personal” when he said, “Christian prayers are too often a shallow, shortsighted, misdirected, and, frankly selfish undertaking.” (MacArthur) What we are learning behind the scenes in verse 11 is to examine our prayer lives. Is your prayer life misdirected, is it light weight? Is your prayer life selfish? It’s a subject which deserves our attention.
Let’s turn to the specifics of Paul’s prayer. First, he prays the Thessalonians would live up to the awesome call God has placed on their lives. Listen to his words once again from verse 11: To this end also we pray for you always, that our God will count you worthy of your calling. It’s been said, “This is the kind of praying that pries us from our seats as spectators and places us as participants with God in matters of destiny.” Now we know our thoughts are not God’s thoughts, but as we mature in our spiritual lives, as we mature in prayer, as we spend this kind of quality time in God’s presence, His thoughts gradually become our thoughts and His ways, our ways.” (paraphrasing Swindoll) No dear ones, this is not your ordinary, every day way of praying.
Please remember from our study last week that our being worthy does not imply we can do anything to make ourselves acceptable to God. Salvation is of the Lord. It is all God’s doing and this is why Paul uses the phrase count you worthy of your CALLING. The awesome call God places on the lives of His children is that “irresistible call that always results in one being saved...one coming to Jesus as Lord and Savior.” This calling is always on the forefront of Paul’s mind as well as his prayers. The New Testament makes at least 50-75 references to this which is labeled the effectual calling of God. Romans 8:28-30 would be a “cornerstone” representation of those verses...
28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
Please do not confuse God’s effectual call with God’s general call. God’s general call is the open invitation to salvation we read about in Matthew 22:14, For many are called, but few are chosen. In other words, the Gospel message goes out to everyone, but only those who are chosen by God will be saved. If this is not true, then we must tear some verses out of God’s Word, verses like John 6:44 where Jesus said, No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him. I never want us to forget that it is God Who seeks and saves those who are lost. We do not seek God! Salvation is of the Lord, solely of the Lord.
We’re talking about the decisive moment when God calls people out of darkness into His glorious light. (This could be taking place right now. If the Holy Spirit of God moves in your heart and calls you to faith in Jesus, I hope you will confess your sins, repent, and believe on Jesus as Savior.) And please do not misunderstand the effectual call. When a person is called by God, that person will obey God’s call. You will want to confess Jesus as Savior. You might spend a few years or maybe many denying Jesus as Lord and Savior. But when God’s call comes on your life you will decide to follow Jesus ¾ just like Paul and countless others.
If not, God is not sovereign, God is not in control. And when they obey, God takes sinners like you and me ¾ sinners who were only worthy of death and an eternal Hell ¾ and He makes us worthy to stand in His presence. He makes us worthy. We cannot do this ourselves. According to 2 Corinthians 5:21, God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus had to die on the Cross as the only perfect sacrifice for our sins so we would be worthy to stand in the presence of the holy God.
So the heart of it is this: God calls people to Himself who are unworthy of His calling. It’s not a matter of “doing something.” Everything has already been done. Jesus paid the price for your sins. So if you’re hanging on to “doing something good for God,” forget it. There is no one capable of pleasing God in their fallen state. Paul may well have been the best biblical example of being unworthy of God’s call. Listen to Galatians 1:13-16...
13 For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I (Paul) used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it;
14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.
15 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased
16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...
When was Paul effectually called to faith in Jesus Christ? That day on the road to Damascus? I don’t think so. Galatians 1:15 says that God set Paul apart for Himself even before he was in his mother’s womb. This should tell us two things. First, if we are called to faith in Jesus we will never fall away from the faith. Why? Because God is in control. Second, if we are called to faith in Jesus, God does not expect us to continue in our sinful state. We are to walk worthy of our calling. We are not to fear being a “stand tall Christian.”
When we are called to salvation by God it is not a call to a spiritual retirement program that includes super benefits. No, we are not to puff ourselves up with pride because God has called us to faith and has not called others. No, we’re called to a worthy life. God intends His calling to reveal itself in our total dedication to a life lived for Christ. And be reminded over and over, we cannot do this in our human strength. This is why Paul prays that our God will count you worthy of your calling. Between the point in time when God saved us until He takes us home or Jesus comes again, we are to live in such a way that God pronounces us worthy (deserving and suitable) of His calling.
The next aspect of Paul’s prayer in verse 11 is God will supply all the power needed to fulfill their desire for goodness. We have touched on this to a certain extent, but the subject deserves a closer look. Paul prays that our God will fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power. Paul is referring to the work of God in the Thessalonians that will produce a goodness of will in them. This is not advocating the Thessalonians or any believer should just resolve to do good. We’ve already said this is impossible in our fallen state. Our goodness comes from what God does in our lives. It is this activity of God that gives us the “resolve to do good, the resolve to desire goodness.”
Godly character leads to godly conduct. We can only have godly character if we allow God to be the sole leader of our lives. We need to take our hands off the steering wheel, get out of the driver’s seat, move to the back seat and leave the driving of our lives up to God. It’s said, “Obedience and service do not spring from human talents and efforts, but from God’s power as we trust Him.”
Here’s something we cannot overlook. I ask, what was going on in the daily lives of the Thessalonian believers? The answer is back in verse 4, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. I’ve tried to imagine my reaction to persecution and affliction ¾ something I have very limited experience with in my walk with Jesus. I pray that when and if I am called to suffer for Christ, I will never be resentful or bitter toward God. Paul is praying the persecution will serve to fan the growth flames of the Thessalonian’s faith. Hopefully, you and I can learn to pray like this.
It’s that proven biblical principle that says men and women and boys and girls who belong to Jesus can be strengthened by the hard things in life. Swindoll puts it in this perspective, “We want relief ¾ God wants deepening of character. We want out ¾ God wants to see us through. We want to say it’s over ¾ God wants us say that the testing did its full work.”
We’re being reminded that “faith is always busy and a true faith will always clothe itself in works.” And it’s God who will fulfill every desire for our goodness pointing us once more to the fact it is God, it is not us. Paul is praying that God, through His supernatural powers, will completely transform us from our humanness into the spiritual giants He has called us to be. There’s only one way this can take place in a believer’s life and that is through the filling of the Holy Spirit and through the indwelling of God’s Word in our lives. God is going to do it, but we must “step up to the plate” and assume the responsibilities that God places on our hearts. Then we will be considered worthy of our calling.
So first we have Paul praying the Thessalonians would live up to the awesome call God has placed on their lives. Second, he asks God to supply all the power needed to fulfill their desire for goodness. Two points that bring us to the purpose for his prayer: that the name of Jesus will be glorified in their lives. Look with me at verse 12...
12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
G. B. Gray tells us, “A person’s name in biblical times was much more than a means of distinguishing one person from another. It summed up the person’s whole character.” We’re all hung up on just knowing names that separate folks from each other. And if it is a name no one knows it must be useless. That thought process goes right into the teeth of Revelation 2:17 where the Spirit is speaking to the churches, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it. This name is a secret between the Lord and the person who receives this new name. The name is important, especially the Name which is above every name!
To glorify the name of Jesus means we will honor and sing the praises of all that He is. Dear ones, this should be the absolute deepest desire of our hearts ¾ to magnify and glorify the name of Jesus. Our lives on this earth are to be such that glory will accrue to the Lord Jesus because He is the One ultimately responsible for this taking place in our lives. As Morris says, “The Thessalonians will be such a bright and shining testimony to the reality of their salvation that the Savior will be seen to be the wonderful Being He is!” Wow! Can you believe that? God is going to empower them and God will empower us to be a bright and shining testimony to our salvation which will only reflect the Lord Jesus Christ. No spotlights on us. All of the attention of the world is directed toward Jesus.
But we’re also told that we will be glorified in Him. I think Paul is going back to verse 10 to remind us of how all of the glory is “in Jesus” and not “in us.” On the day when He comes again, Jesus will be glorified in us because of what we have become through His power and we will be glorified in Him on account of Who He is. His power and who He is will prepare us to stand faultless before the throne of almighty God. The thought pattern is repetitious: we owe all that we have and all that we are to God.
Dear ones, our worthiness, our calling, our goodness, our faith is according to: the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt,
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was split.
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within,
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin.
Grace, one of Christianity’s greatest words, if not the greatest. The joyous free and unrestrained favor of God ¾ His unmerited, unearned kindheartedness to people. And even though we normally think of grace in terms of salvation, we must realize it will be just as present in the final stages as it was at first. All the glory we experience in the last days will be will be a product of God’s grace. It’s the grace of our God and Father, it is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in Hebrews 10:29 the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of grace. God in all His fullness and majesty showering grace down on those whom He has called to faith in Jesus through the Holy Spirit’s working in their hearts and minds.
2 Thessalonians Chapter 1 was written....
· to help us find purpose in any pain we may suffer for the cause of Christ.
· It was also written to help us make sense of what is going on around us.
· It was written to make certain we understand our God is sovereign and His perfect plan will find its completion in its time.
· It was written so that we would never lose sight of the fact that if we are in Christ; we are in God’s perfect plan.
The target for us is that we will start to understand what eternity is all about and then armed with that information we will long to see Jesus come again. So when we’re “knee deep” in trials and difficulties because we’re standing for Jesus, we’ll know the purpose: He will be glorified in us as He makes us worthy of our calling.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
...and all God’s people said.