Text: 2 Thessalonians 3:(1–5) 6–13
Theme: The Lord is faithful
Other Lessons: Malachi 4:1–6; Psalm 98; Luke 21:5–28 (29–36)
A. In the Name of the Father…Amen.
B. The Epistle reading serves as our sermon text for this morning.
C. Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our heavenly Father through
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
D. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
LSB 745 In God, My Faithful God
1
In God, my faithful God,
I trust when dark my road;
Great woes may overtake me,
Yet He will not forsake me.
My troubles He can alter;
His hand lets nothing falter.
Introduction
A. Long before Paul knew to call Jesus Lord, the Word of the Lord was
speeding ahead, going faster and farther than anyone could ask or imagine.
1. The Word of the Lord was proven true in the conception and birth of the
Messiah by a virgin.
2. It went far ahead of expectation when Jesus suffered, died, was buried,
and rose again according to Scripture.
3. The Word of the Lord prevailed mightily when, in a single day, thousands
were converted at the preaching of Peter.
4. The Word of the Lord accomplished all these things and so many more that
time would fail to tell before—long before—Paul knew to call Jesus Lord.
B. When Jesus at long last encountered Saul (who would be later called
Paul) on the road to Damascus, what seemed like an interruption—abrupt,
troubling, blinding—to Paul was all within Jesus’ divine purpose.
1. As the Lord explained to Ananias, who would baptize the newly blinded
and newly believing Paul,
A. “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts
9:16).
2. Jesus did not say that Paul’s life would be easy or pleasant or nice or
simple to understand, with a cushy return on his retirement investments.
3. Jesus did not say that Paul would know where he would lay down his head
every night or where he would be buried.
4. Jesus did say that he knew and had determined what Paul would be put
through for the sake of the Gospel and that Jesus would show his servant
those things:
A. those pains,
B. those trials,
C. those tribulations.
C. When you at long last encounter pains or trials or tribulations, what do
you do?
1. Are you surprised?
A. Don’t be.
B. Suffering and trial are our lot as this old world is wearing out and as
Satan thrashes around and lashes out, seeking his prey like a hungry lion.
2. Are you wearied?
A. Don’t be.
B. Nothing has overtaken you that is not common to man.
C. Your battles are not new, and they are not your own.
D. You labor with Christ and with all his people.
3. What should you do?
A. Realize that We Have Confidence Because of the Lord’s Faithfulness and
Quietness Because Our Lives Are His Gift Entirely.
Introduction
A. Long before Paul knew to call Jesus Lord, the Word of the Lord was
speeding ahead, going faster and farther than anyone could ask or imagine.
1. The Word of the Lord was proven true in the conception and birth of the
Messiah by a virgin.
2. It went far ahead of expectation when Jesus suffered, died, was buried,
and rose again according to Scripture.
3. The Word of the Lord prevailed mightily when, in a single day, thousands
were converted at the preaching of Peter.
4. The Word of the Lord accomplished all these things and so many more that
time would fail to tell before—long before—Paul knew to call Jesus Lord.
B. When Jesus at long last encountered Saul (who would be later called
Paul) on the road to Damascus, what seemed like an interruption—abrupt,
troubling, blinding—to Paul was all within Jesus’ divine purpose.
1. As the Lord explained to Ananias, who would baptize the newly blinded
and newly believing Paul,
A. “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts
9:16).
2. Jesus did not say that Paul’s life would be easy or pleasant or nice or
simple to understand, with a cushy return on his retirement investments.
3. Jesus did not say that Paul would know where he would lay down his head
every night or where he would be buried.
4. Jesus did say that he knew and had determined what Paul would be put
through for the sake of the Gospel and that Jesus would show his servant
those things:
A. those pains,
B. those trials,
C. those tribulations.
C. When you at long last encounter pains or trials or tribulations, what do
you do?
1. Are you surprised?
A. Don’t be.
B. Suffering and trial are our lot as this old world is wearing out and as
Satan thrashes around and lashes out, seeking his prey like a hungry lion.
2. Are you wearied?
A. Don’t be.
B. Nothing has overtaken you that is not common to man.
C. Your battles are not new, and they are not your own.
D. You labor with Christ and with all his people.
3. What should you do?
A. Realize that We Have Confidence Because of the Lord’s Faithfulness and
Quietness Because Our Lives Are His Gift Entirely.
I. We have confidence because of the Lord’s faithfulness.
A. Paul tells the congregation he planted in Thessalonica to pray that the
Word of the Lord would speed ahead just as it did to them, making haste,
making a way for faith.
B. Verse 1
Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead
and be honored, as happened among you,
1. Paul commands that they pray because he knows that the Lord is faithful.
A. Verse 3a
But the Lord is faithful.
2. The Lord’s desire and design for his children is to guard and keep them
from the evil one
A. Verse 3b
He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
B. just as you pray in the Lord’s Prayer that you may be delivered from
evil, or, more literally, from the evil one.
3. When Paul was wearied or perplexed or downtrodden or near death, he
still had a loving Father and a Savior whose atoning blood was shed for
him.
4. And so do you.
C. You can have confidence in the Lord’s faithfulness because his record is
solid
1. Verse 4
And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will
do the things that we command.
2. Tell me: Which of his promises has failed?
A. The promise that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head?
B. The promise that in the Seed of Abraham all the families of the earth
would be blessed?
C. The promise that death would not find anyone inside the homes on which
the lambs’ blood was smeared on the doorposts?
D. The promise that the Virgin would conceive and bear a Son?
E. The promise that the Holy One of God would not see corruption?
F. Which of his divine and everlasting promises has failed?
G. Not a single one!
H. All the promises of God find in our Lord Jesus their Yes and their Amen
to God’s eternal glory!
D. His record is solid, and his faithfulness is sure.
1. Not a single day in your life goes by that has not been lived apart from
his care and love.
2. You may have always known that care and that love.
3. You may not have always known or not always appreciated or not always
cared about that care and that love.
4. He did not take it from you.
5. He never left you, nor did he forsake you.
6. May the Lord direct your hearts to God’s love so richly and eternally
displayed in the cross of Jesus, where you see for yourself how strongly
his fatherly love for you sought you.
7. If God were anything other than a loving Father, he would not have sent
his Son, Jesus, to the cross for you, laying on the God-man’s shoulders:
A. your sin,
B. your complaining,
C. your grumbling,
D. your fear,
E. your cowardice,
F. your indifference,
G. your shallowness and
H. yes, your pettiness.
8. God did not count those trespasses against you but made peace by the
blood of Jesus’ cross so that you and Paul and all the saints might say
together,
A. (cf Romans 5:1).
“Therefore, we have peace with God!”
E. Peace with a loving God will direct your hearts to the steadfastness of
Christ.
1. The world swirls and changes constantly.
2. It did in Paul’s day.
3. It does in ours.
4. You don’t have to be confident
A. that “it will all work out.”
5. You don’t have to be confident
A. that everything you ever wanted will someday fall into your lap.
6. No such life is promised in the Bible, so you don’t need to worry about
the fact that it didn’t happen.
7. What is promised and seen in the Bible is that Jesus Christ is
steadfast.
A. Everything changes;
B. everything comes and goes;
C. the surest things and the surest friends are here today and gone
tomorrow.
D. Life fades like a dream, and all flesh is like grass, growing, fading,
dying.
E. But the Word of the Lord endures forever.
F. The world will turn and change, but Christ is the same today, yesterday,
and forever.
F. So you won’t have
1. a bad day
2. or a bad week
3. or a bad month
4. or a bad year in which God is not your loving Father
5. and Christ is not your steadfast Savior.
6. You won’t face
A. a little difficulty
B. or a big bill
C. or a temporary inconvenience
D. or an accident that changes life forever without a Father who sees and
knows your every need
E. and a Brother who was himself perfected through suffering.
7. You will not see a single sunrise without knowing the Father who set the
sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens and the Savior who is fairer
and brighter than the sun.
A. Therefore trust in the Lord!
II. We have quietness because our lives are the Lord’s gift entirely.
A. Paul trusted in the Lord for his good purposes, and the apostle was
confident that the Thessalonians would lead lives fitting for believers.
1. Verse 12
Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do
their work quietly and to earn their own living.
2. There is one characteristic of a Christian life especially suitable for
a people confident that their Father is providing each and every day:
quietness
B. The situation in Thessalonica was that some people, believing the
resurrection had already occurred, were living as if nothing mattered, and
among other things, had stopped working.
1. Verse 11
For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but
busybodies.
2. They did nothing all day, just blabbed and chattered and upset their
fellow believers, yapping and running at the mouth.
3. Sticks and stones can break your bones, and sometimes words do hurt you
or others.
4. Saying anything that comes into your head,
5. having “no filter,”
6. offering your opinion on every subject,
7. and especially proclaiming false doctrine—
A. in this case, that the resurrection had already happened, strange as
that falsehood may seem
B. are evils far more grievous far more often than a neighborhood kid’s
baseball breaking a window.
C. Jesus said about people’s lives:
1. Matthew 7:16
“You will recognize them by their fruits”
2. Don’t just listen to what people say—important as words are—
A. but observe also what they do.
B. The blabbers and chatterers do nothing.
C. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that when he first preached the Gospel to
them, he was doing anything necessary for the Gospel to spread.
D. Verses 7-8
(7) For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were
not idle when we were with you,
(8) nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and
labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you
E. Paul was providing for himself until they were established enough to pay
their own pastor and Paul would move on to another place.
D. Examples are powerful, and lives speak volumes.
1. The life Paul led showed that he thought the Gospel and the faith of the
Thessalonians in the Savior were more important than anything else.
2. He was willing to set everything else aside and to inconvenience himself
so that they could hear and believe the Gospel that Jesus was their
steadfast Savior.
3. The blabbers and chatterers are willing to set everything else aside
(especially productive work!) so that others can pay attention to them and
heed their words and stir up trouble and strife.
4. They talk and talk and talk and do nothing because they love to be heard
and to take bread from someone else’s mouth without lifting a finger.
E. That’s why Paul sums up his teaching with this:
1. Verse 10
“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
2. Sound too harsh?
3. The idea is that freeloading comes along with consequences.
4. Talking and not working is not a “victimless crime.”
5. Nothing is free.
6. Everything has its cost.
7. The only question is who will be paying the bill.
A. Who will provide lunch?
B. Who will provide meals when a baby is born or someone goes into the
hospital?
C. Who will provide a helping hand when the lady down the street is too old
to care for her house like she used to?
D. All these things,
E. all this love and care,
F. everything good about being together in our families, our neighborhoods,
and our churches, cost someone something.
F. Jesus knew that.
1. His forgiveness and mercy cost him his very life.
2. He knew that was the cost, and he paid it nonetheless.
3. Paul knew that Jesus had paid his whole debt of sin, and he imitated
Christ in giving up his rights and prerogatives for the sake of the Gospel,
working with his own hands so that the new Christians would not have to go
without the Gospel because they couldn’t pay a preacher of the Gospel.
4. Everything costs someone something, and the Christian who is imitating
Paul, who was imitating Christ, knows that.
G. You know that providing lunch after church or meals when someone’s in
need or a helping hand around the house or love for a lifetime all have
costs, and because you are in Christ, you are to be happy to bear those
costs.
1. You don’t need to talk about them, telling everyone all the good you’re
doing.
2. You don’t need to shout from the rooftops the meals you made for Kevin
after he came home from the hospital.
3. or the aid you gave Lynn after his stroke last November.
4. You don’t need to talk and chatter and blab on.
5. You need to know what costs have to be borne and what burdens have to be
shared, and you pray that you may bear them and share them, just as Christ
bore and shared yours, just as Paul bore and shared the Thessalonians’.
6. We who are in Christ are always bearing one another’s burdens and so
fulfilling the law of Christ, who bore all our sin.
H. A life that shirks those burdens and that sharing is not a life in
Christ.
1. It may sound Christian or speak in good Lutheran slogans, but it is not
in Christ.
2. It may say the right words from the right people, but it is not in
Christ if it does not bear the burdens of the saints and share in the life
we all have in Christ.
3. It is empty talk and mere words, a bag full of gas and nothing more.
I. That’s why Paul is so definite.
1. He does not want the Thessalonians or you or I to fall into an empty,
vain life, with much pretense of Christ and little of the life that is in
Christ.
2. He has no truck:
A. with vain words,
B. using empty and deceptive ways, going on and on to the point it gets
annoying.
3. The apostle and his Lord are men of action and would have all Christians
be active in love, as faith always is.
J. We live the life of Christ, bearing burdens in quiet confidence.
1. Quietness is the opposite of blabbing and gossiping, but quietness is
not the same thing as silence.
2. Silence never speaks;
A. quietness may sometimes speak.
B. It may speak to encourage, to forgive, to guide, to sing, to pray.
C. Quietness does not have to be heard at all times, at the beginning and
end of every meeting.
D. Quietness is happy to listen, quick to hear, slow to speak, and thus
slow to anger.
E. Quietness can carry a tongue in its head without always using its
tongue.
F. Quietness will not set the whole world on fire and does not need to.
G. It is confident that the Lord will act and that the Lord will fulfill
his Word.
K. Quietness was Christ’s, and so it’s yours too.
1. He was quiet when Satan taunted him in the wilderness, using only God’s
Word to fight.
2. He was quiet in the face of his many accusers, and when they made a
mockery of him as he was shedding his life’s blood for the life of the
world, he prayed for his mockers’ forgiveness.
3. Quietness is confidence;
4. Loudness, brashness, yapping, blabbing, gossiping, chattering cannot and
are not signs of confidence.
5. Instead, they are signs of someone being:
A. nervous
B. anxious
C. and worried about how they sound and how they look.
D. Christ, in his quietness, looked only to God for vindication and life,
and his confidence was not put to shame.
E. In quietness, he was raised on the third day.
L. How is quietness not the same thing as silence?
1. Verse 12
Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do
their work quietly and to earn their own living.
2. Many believe the two things are identical, but you can hear the
difference between them in the outdoors.
3. Only people who don’t know anything about birdsong think that the
outdoors are “silent.”
4. Silence would mean the absence of life.
A. No animals crying or singing,
B. no insects chirping or creaking,
C. no wind blowing or howling.
D. Silence is when there is truly nothing there.
M. People unfamiliar with the outdoors or even just rural communities
sometimes describe those places as “the middle of nowhere,” but the
outdoors and rural places aren’t nowhere.
1. They’re not absent of life.
2. They’re quiet, but not silent.
3. Birds sing and chirp, according to the seasons.
4. Animals cry or sing or make the multitude of noises their feet or
throats or arms make as they go about their business.
5. The wind blows or howls or screeches through the trees.
6. It may be quiet, but it is not silent.
7. Those with ears to hear truly do hear quietness.
8. No one can hear silence.
N. The quiet confidence we have in Christ is not silence.
1. It can be heard in prayer, in song, in preaching.
2. It does not have to shout all the time, making the noise of a city
garbage truck.
3. It could be as quiet as birdsong, but it is truly alive in Christ, full
of quiet joy and peace.
Conclusion
A. Therefore, lead the quiet life you’ve been given, however much noise the
world puts into it.
1. Share in the burdens of the saints,
2. love your family,
3. love your neighbor and neighborhood,
4. and love the church the Lord has called you to be.
5. You do not need the world’s vindication or applause.
6. You have a Father who sees in secret and a Savior in whose scarred hands
your whole life is now hidden from sight.
7. When he appears at long last with his angels and all the elect of God,
you will receive the life and glories he has laid up for you, the treasures
that nothing can touch.
8. He is steadfast,
9. he is faithful,
10. and he will surely do it. Amen.
B. Let us pray:
LSB 745 In God, My Faithful God
5
“So be it,” then, I say
With all my heart each day.
Dear Lord, we all adore You,
We sing for joy before You.
Guide us while here we wander
Until we praise You yonder. Amen.
Text: Public domain
E. The peace of God, which transcends all human understanding, guard your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
F. In the Name of the Father…Amen.