Grace Be With You

Scripture Reading

Well, you turn in your Bibles and meet me at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Congratulations, you have made it to the last verse of 1 Thessalonians. Just as a heads up, after this we will be going into the book of Joshua. So 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 28. If you're using your pew Bibles, you can find 1 Thessalonians 5 on page 1050. First Thessalonians chapter five, for context we'll read verses 23 through 28 together this morning, but the sermon will be specifically on that last verse, verse 28. First Thessalonians chapter five, beginning at verse 23, brothers and sisters, make no doubt about it, this is God's word.

Let's receive it with faith. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole soul, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who calls you, He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

Prayer for Illumination

Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your Word, and we pray now that your Spirit would illuminate our minds. Father, we pray that as we have read your Word, that we might dig deep into it, understand it, and that you would apply it to our hearts, that we might live it in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. There's a man who was sleeping on a couch at work. Sleeping on a couch at work, his marriage was dissolving, his family was in ruin, everything was going wrong. And one of his friends kindly came up next to him and asked him, are you a Christian? And as he asked, are you a Christian?

Sermon

The man said, well, yeah. And he went on and he asked, well, what does that mean that you are a Christian? He said, well, it doesn't mean I have to go to church. And he said, well, we'll talk about that later. What do you think it means to be a Christian? And he said, well, it means that, you know, I have to believe in God, and I have to do enough good things. I have to be a good person.

And this friend just gently brought this man along to Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not a result of works, lest anyone should boast. No, you're not a Christian because you do enough good stuff. We're Christians because God has poured out his grace upon us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

And that's what verse 28, the last words coming from the apostle's pen to you today is a prayer, is a prayer that you might look to the fountain of grace, Jesus Christ himself. Verse 28, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen. If you're a child and you're writing or drawing on your paper you have there, maybe you, as a summary of what this sermon is, maybe you want to draw a picture of somebody being kind to an enemy who hated them.

But for the rest of us, we need to look at what this grace looks like. And we need to start with a logical place. What is grace? What is grace? Verse 28 says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. Well, what is grace? Romans chapter 5 verse 8 shows us in one of the most beautiful ways. Romans chapter 5 verse 8, but God demonstrates his own love toward us. And that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Grace is God's unmerited favor. You can write that down. Grace is God's unmerited favor. What does it mean that it says unmerited favor? Unmerited means you can't earn it. You can't earn it. You can't do enough for it. It's not because you do so much that God loves you.

It's because He loves you. It's just His choice. He wants to love you. He pours out His favor upon us because He wants to. This is the paradoxical nature of the gospel. See, it's not that God is our enemy and we need to make ourselves right with God. It's that we are God's enemy and He made it right with His enemies. God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This is grace, unmerited favor, unmerited love. He loves us because he decides to show us that undeserved kindness.

Paul knew this well in his own life. The person who writes this final prayer to them, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, amen, was once not Paul the apostle, but was Saul the persecutor, was Saul the Pharisee of Pharisees. Paul knew what it was like to go into people's homes in the dark of night and to drag out people. He knew what it was like to see children weep as he drug their fathers out of their homes because they believed in Jesus Christ. He knew what it was like to rip apart families and try to destroy the grace of Jesus Christ, try to rip apart the church.

This enemy of Jesus Christ was loved by Jesus Christ. Do you get that? Saul hated Jesus Christ. And yet when he was on his way to Damascus to go try to kill the Christians, to go try to destroy the church, what did Jesus Christ do? But he shined his light upon Saul. He took his heart of stone and he changed it into a heart of flesh. He made him one of his own children. He forgave his sins. He showed kindness and favor and love to someone who was trying to kill his people. Saul, Saul, why do you kick against the goats?" He loved him. He showed him grace. He showed him favor. He showed him kindness.

Not earned, but received. The thief on the cross next to Jesus knew this well. Have you ever worked slowly through the Gospels before and noticed That when you first read through the Gospels, there's Jesus Christ sitting at the center on His cross, and on His right is one criminal, and on His left is another criminal.

And the story starts off that they're both blaspheming Him. They're both ridiculing Him. They're both making fun of Him. They're both dejecting Him. They're both saying everything against Him. And then something happens at one point. Something happens. where one of them gets it. And as the other continues to jeer at Jesus, he says, we deserve to be here. But not that one.

And Jesus looks at him and he says, today you will be with me in paradise. This one who was his enemy, blaspheming him, mocking him, ridiculing him, Jesus shows him favor. promises him that he'll remember him in paradise. This is the grace that Paul writes here that God wants you to know here in verse 28. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. This is the grace that needs to follow us in our lives.

I was sitting this week in my office and someone had given me a magazine, the RP testimony, the RP witness from a long time ago, 2008, and I picked this up. By the way, I don't typically mind when you give me old stuff as long as it's good stuff. And this one was from something I had never read before. from someone you know well, Julie Pilling. I typed these out here on this paper, but feel free to ask me later and I could let you borrow this. But when Julie was suffering from cancer and she wrote a number of things that I'd like to read you as we go through this message today. And when she understood grace, She said, he has encouraged me very much in the last several weeks, especially in the fact that he is my savior and Lord and nothing can separate me from him.

It is not my faith per se. It is the one on whom my faith stands that gives me confidence in the future, whatever it holds. It wasn't her faith per se, she says, but it was the one upon whom she stood, Jesus Christ. That it was Jesus Christ who loved her, had showed her kindness, had shown her favor. And whatever the future might hold, and at that point she didn't know what the future might hold. She hoped that the cancer might be eradicated, that the chemo would work. She knew that she could stand. because she had the favor of God shown to her through Jesus Christ.

Second Point

Grace is unmerited favor. And it flows from Jesus Christ. The second point you have for you is Jesus is the fountain of grace. And Jesus is the fountain of grace. Verse 28, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Where do you find grace? His name is Jesus. Where do you find unmerited favor before the God of the heavens and the earth? You find it at the feet of the cross. You find it in Jesus Christ.

When Jesus was doing his earthly ministry in John chapter 4, it says that he needed to, he had to go to Samaria. And while he's there in Samaria, he finds an outcast woman. This woman of Samaria, and Jesus comes, it's the middle of the day, he's hot and he's thirsty. In John chapter 4 verse 7, Jesus tells this woman, give me a drink.

And the woman said to him, how is it that you, being a Jew, ask of me for a drink, a Samaritan woman, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans? And Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would give you living water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.

Where do you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself as well as his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up. into everlasting life.

The woman said to him, sir, give me this water that I may not thirst nor come here to draw. Jesus said to him, her, go call your husband and come here. He addresses her sins. She runs into town after this interaction with Jesus and she says, come and meet the man who's told me everything I've ever done.

Jesus is that well. in which we find the living water that satisfies our souls. Jesus is the one. You see, we often think about our faith and we think about assenting to some amount of truths or some things that Jesus has done, but brothers and sisters, it is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the object of our faith.

A wonderful book. I brought more books than I probably should today. I don't normally recommend resources to you like this, but Sinclair Ferguson wrote a wonderful book. You can put it in, don't buy it today, but put it in your Amazon cart some other time. the whole Christ.

Wonderful, wonderful book, speaking of Jesus being the object of our faith. It is Jesus that we look to. It is Jesus that we go to. This is what the Apostle John says in first, or in John 1, 14, when he says that they beheld his glory. Glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It's in Jesus that we find the outpouring love of the Father upon us.

This is where we need to stop. It's easy for us just to go about in our Christian lives, and to think about the Christian ethics, and to go about our lives, and to think about the chaos of the world compared with the order of what God says is in His Word. But brothers and sisters, we need to stop sometimes.

And we need to just marvel that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who dwelt perfectly with His Father in heavens from all eternity past, who governed the nations, who spoke, it says that the word, that the cosmos were created by the power of His word, and all things are sustained by Jesus Christ. Every single thing we see in this room, the pews you are sitting on, the Bibles in your hands, everything is held together by Jesus Christ.

And that God became man. He lived. He subjected himself to imperfect parents. He lived perfectly under every single law in the Torah. Doing everything right for us. And was even willing, instead of being the executioner, was willing to let himself be executed. for your sins, for your trespasses, for your iniquities he bared the cross. The God, man himself, suffered for me. He is the object of our faith. He is the one by whom we see God's grace.

Again, Julie wrote in one of her emails or letters to her family when she found out that cancer had returned and that it wouldn't be eliminated in her life, but just merely controlled. She said, you see, writing to her family, no matter what happens, I win. If the Lord would graciously heal me with a miracle, I will rejoice and tell of his mighty power to save, giving him the credit. It is certainly a situation that requires His miraculous work.

As the Lord allows continuation of the disease over the next months and possibly years, ending in death, I still win. Because I can confidently say, I love Jesus. Who is the person, the object of her affection? It's Jesus Christ, the God-man Himself. He will not allow anything to harm me without His all-knowing, all-good direction. Nothing can separate me from Him and His love. Nothing else matters, ultimately. What makes heaven? Brothers and sisters, what makes heaven is that's where Jesus Christ is.

Why do you desire to go to heaven? Do you desire to go to heaven because there are streets of gold? Brothers and sisters, that's a wrong thing to think about heaven. Do you desire to go to heaven because you're not going to have to work anymore? That's not it. Are you excited to go to heaven because you don't want to cry and grieve and weep anymore? That's not what everybody in heaven is looking at. Why do they not cry? Why are the streets paved with gold? Why is there the tree that spans both sides of the river, abounding in fruit? Why is it there?

Because the Lamb is sitting upon His throne, and the myriads of angels cry out day and night, Holy, Holy, Holy! They sing the praise of the Lamb who was slain, who has ascended up onto His throne. It's the Lamb who was slain, who is worthy to open the seals, and we stand before His presence. We see His face shining upon us.

That is why there is no night or day, no sun or moon, because the light of Jesus Christ's face shines upon us. Why do you want to go to heaven? Do you desire your Savior? Do you want to see the face of Jesus Christ? Why is there no more tears? Because your joy is before your face, Jesus Christ is there. Do you long to sing the praises of the Lamb who is worthy to be slain? That's why we want to see Christ. It is Jesus Christ who is the fountain of grace. It is Jesus Christ who is the object of our faith. And this grace transforms us and transforms the church. I'm going to run past these last two real fast. Buckle up. Get ready to write. Here we go. Third point. The grace of Jesus transforms my life. The grace of Jesus transforms my life.

Ephesians chapter 2, 8 and 9 rightly says, "...for by grace you have been saved through faith in that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, lest anyone should boast." We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus that we might do the good works prepared in advance that we might walk in them. God saved us by His grace. that we might look more like Christ. Grace transforms our lives. The grace of Jesus Christ, as our hearts are renewed, as we're conformed to Jesus, it changes the priorities in our lives. It changes how we love people because it changed who we love. See, in our pagan selves, we loved the world and we loved ourselves.

But what does Jesus say? How does he summarize the moral law? What does it mean to be a child of God? That we love God and we love others. God gave us grace and now we become conduits of grace. We become those who can impart grace to those who hear us. Is that not what Ephesians chapter four says? Let no unwholesome word proceed out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up, that you might impart grace to those who hear you. Jesus Christ has spoken grace to you. Now you get to speak grace and build others up.

What does that look like to you in your workplace? Are you given to tearing people down? Are you given to, as one person told me this week, it's so easy to join in to the grumbling and complaining at the workplace with your co-workers about the administration, about your bosses, and the management, and those other people at work, or do you refrain from those and say, no, I got to impart grace? I get to speak well of others. I could just show unmerited kindness to others because Jesus has shown unmerited kindness to me.

As you parent your children, do you show grace to your children? Do you show your children, fathers, I am specifically going to talk to you now, fathers, do you show the kindness, the gentleness of your father to your children? Maybe your children are grown and you say, that ship sailed. You got grandkids or grandkids to show it to? No time to repent like today. Become that conduit of grace as you fix your mind upon Jesus Christ and He transforms your heart and shows you the depths and the riches of His grace. You get to show that to your children.

Moms, I know that you get the primary brunt of this as caregivers. I know that you can get weary and tired But for those of you who are mothers, God has put you in a place where you can show grace upon grace. Maybe you don't have children. Maybe you're a caregiver to someone who's ailing.

You can show that grace to those around you as you think about how God has been gracious to you. Children, this is something that you can show to your siblings as you think upon the grace that Jesus Christ has shown to you. How can you show grace to your brothers and sisters this week? How can you show them the love of Jesus that he has shown you? How can you show it to your spouse this week? How do you show them that Jesus Christ has truly shown you grace and then you can turn and show grace to your family, to your spouse? This is exactly what it was speaking about above. We want to kind of think of things as disconnected, right? But that's not how it works. Verses 12 through 22 gave us a whole bunch of commands for the church. But these commands are rooted in, built up by, founded upon the grace that we find in Jesus Christ.

How can you be devoted to the sick Because Jesus Christ is devoted to you. How can you be patient with everyone? Because Jesus Christ is gracious. He is patient with you. How can you be gentle with those who are faint of heart? Because gentle, because Jesus is gentle with you. It's Jesus who says, come to me all you who are weary. I will give you rest. I'm gonna offer to you another book. A wonderful little book I've been enjoying reading. Dane Ortland, Gentle and Lowly. I have copies of this for every single one of you when you walk out the door today, each family. I'd encourage you to spend some time, even this Sabbath, to think about Jesus Christ and how gentle and lowly he was with others.

We get to be conduits of His grace. Again, this is not because somehow that earns us His grace, but the grace we extend to others is because we are connected to the vine. We bear good fruit because we are in Christ Jesus and He flows through us. Fourthly, the grace of Jesus transforms the church.

There's something here that English does a disservice to, to Greek, and I've been reading it and reading it and reading it. Maybe you caught that I keep misreading this verse. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. I don't think any of your translations are going to say, you all, but it is a second person plural in the Greek. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with y'all. If you were in the South or if you lived in Pittsburgh, it would say, May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you guys. It's you all, it's the whole church. May grace flow over the church, flow through the church. May the church be built upon the foundation stone of Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, and may that grace permeate every part of our fellowship. And that's again where the commands above are rooted in grace.

It's not just legalism. We're not just being patient with one another because God is a dictator and told us to be patient. No, we're patient with one another because Jesus Christ is patient with us. Jesus Christ is devoted to the lowly, so in the church, we're able to be gentle with those who are faint of heart, because Jesus is gentle with us, gracious towards us. We're able to honor the elders because God is gracious to us, and Jesus honored his Father. We're able to live at peace with one another because Jesus Christ has graciously paved the path of peace for us to walk. We're able to admonish the unruly in our midst because Jesus Christ graciously admonishes us when we sin. We're able to repay good for evil because Jesus Christ has displayed that perfectly.

Jesus Christ has given us eternal life in response to our sins. Fix your eyes upon Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters. May He conform you to the image of Jesus Christ. May you hope for the coming of Jesus Christ. May you be conduits of the grace of Jesus Christ. May you glory in Jesus Christ, bask in his unmerited favor. I was amazed as I continued to read this article about Julie that, I think I'm gonna do this. She wrote a note to be read at her funeral. I think that's a great idea. And part of that note, she said, the past four years has taught me many things, most of all, that we only need Jesus.

Things can be stripped away little by little or all at once. But if we have Jesus, that is all we need. And as we get to know Him, Jesus will be all we want. I want you to know that your prayers have been answered. I am healed, I am whole, and I am enjoying Jesus and all the wonders in heaven. With all my love, Julie. Brothers and sisters, may you want nothing more than Jesus Christ. And I pray that God makes you hunger and thirst for Jesus Christ. And may he fill you with nothing less. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with every single one of you.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Oh, Father, what grace upon grace you have shown us. Lord, I pray that where there were wrong things, too simplistic things that I said this morning, Lord, I pray that they would evaporate. Lord, I pray that you would give us living water. Father, we pray that we would thirst no more. Spirit, Holy Spirit, please apply these words to our hearts. Hear our prayers for the name of Jesus Christ. It's in his