This Is The Will of God

Knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me... Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. (2 Peter 1:14-15)

And we urge you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all... Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:14, 16-18)

We forget easily—so God, through His apostles and through His church, keeps reminding us how to walk in faith, hope, and love.

Peter's Ministry of Reminder

The Apostle Peter wrote 2 Peter near the end of his life. He recognized that the day of his death was approaching—and he was one of the very few who knew implicitly what his death would look like. In the last chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus told Peter that he too would be crucified. When that day finally came, Peter did not consider himself worthy to die as his Lord did, so he asked to be crucified upside down.

Knowing his time was short, Peter says in verse 14, "shortly I must put off my tent, just as the Lord Jesus Christ showed me." And before that day comes, he wants to do something. Three times in verses 12, 13, and 15 he uses the word remind. "I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things... though you know them, and are established in the present truth."

Why We Need Reminding

I'll confess this message is very near to one I've given before, because it's an important message we all need to hear again. We need to be put in reminder of things we may have heard twenty, thirty, forty times before. Because how many of us will admit we're forgetful? You walk into another room and you've already forgotten what you came to do.

I actually found this encouraging. A research professor at Notre Dame discovered that a doorway creates something called an event boundary. When you walk through a doorway, your brain compartmentalizes the thought you just had and you start fresh. So it's not just Alzheimer's—we'll all be blaming our forgetfulness on event boundaries from now on. The point is, Peter says, "I will not be negligent to remind you," and we all need that.

Faith, Hope, and Love

Turn left to 1 Thessalonians 5. As Paul concludes this letter, he writes about future prophetic events—the second coming of the Lord—and in light of that he exhorts the church to be watchful, sober-minded, and to walk and work in faith, hope, and love.

This is striking because back in chapter 1, Paul had already commended them for this: "remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ." The book is bracketed by it. He congratulates them at the beginning for doing it, then at the end he tells them to keep doing it. Between those two points lies the recognition that you can be walking in faith, laboring in love, and patient in hope at one moment, and somewhere down the road no longer be doing that.

It is not a given that five or ten years from now we'll still be working out our faith. Many things can derail, distract, or diminish it. Every one of us can think of someone who once walked closely with the Lord and now no longer does. They've been distracted, derailed, or they've simply drifted.

Drifting and Maturity

Living in Southern California, we understand drifting. You go to the beach in front of Lifeguard Tower six, and two hours later you're in front of Tower eleven. You didn't swim there—you did nothing. If you do nothing, you will drift. You have to work not to drift. The same is true in our walk with the Lord. You can be in the right place today and, months or years down the road, look back and wonder, "How did I end up here?"—not because you chose a wrong direction, but because you stopped doing what kept you consistent.

Faith, hope, and love appear throughout the New Testament—1 Corinthians 13, 1 and 2 Timothy, and especially the closing chapters of Hebrews, where chapter 10 exhorts believers to continue, and chapters 11, 12, and 13 take up faith, hope, and love in turn. These are marks of Christian maturity, and they should be increasing in us until the day we see Christ. Even trials encourage hope, as Romans 5 makes clear. So I'm stirring you up by way of reminder, my brothers and sisters. You know these things—but sometimes we fail to realize that though we know it up here, we're not applying it.

"We Exhort You"

Verse 14: "We exhort you, brethren." The word exhort is the Greek parakaleō—to come alongside with a call. Think of a coach or trainer who pushes you to press on when it gets hard.

My senior year I played football at Orange Glen High School. During the playoffs we had practice on Thanksgiving night, and our coach, Rob Gilster, lined us up to run sprints for fifteen or twenty minutes. I seriously thought I was going to die. But in the middle of it, our coach stepped onto the line and said, "I'm going to run with you"—and he beat every one of us. That's the idea of an exhorter: someone who comes alongside and says, "Let's go. I know it's difficult, but we can do this together."

That same root word is used of the Comforter—the Holy Spirit—whom Jesus promised to send. So Paul, inspired by the Spirit, exhorts the church to do four things toward four groups, and notice these groups are within the body of Christ.

Warn the Unruly

"Warn those who are unruly." Other translations read "lazy" or "idle." Remember, you don't have to do anything to drift—just maintain idleness, kick back, and the rip current of this world will pull you the wrong way. Paul reminds the Ephesians that we once walked "according to the course of this world," and he tells the Romans, "Do not be conformed to this world."

So Paul says, admonish those who are not engaged, not plugged in, not connected. If your only involvement in the church is showing up on Sunday, I would warn you—you're in real danger of backsliding. Plenty of people attend churches with no real depth of faith, hope, and love. We need to engage, plug in, and get involved.

The Thessalonians clearly struggled with this. In 2 Thessalonians 3:10 Paul writes, "If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies." The truth is, our default nature is laziness. That's why the exhortation exists.

Comfort the Faint-hearted

The word comfort is also tied to the work of the Holy Spirit, who works in and through His church. Some people are disconnected not by choice but because their hearts have been weighed down by distraction and discouragement—the weight of daily life and of living out the Christian life. Their hearts need to be encouraged.

When I find myself faint-hearted, I'm helped by being reminded of who I am and what I have in Christ. There's no better place than Ephesians 1: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." He chose us before the foundation of the world, predestined us to adoption, made us accepted in the Beloved, redeemed us by His blood, and made His grace abound toward us. And in the fullness of times He will gather all things together in Christ and reveal to us throughout eternity "the exceeding riches of His grace."

So we look around for brothers and sisters who are discouraged. We knock on their door, sit down, and pray: "Lord, encourage my brother, my sister." That's comforting the faint-hearted.

Uphold the Weak

Then there are those who are weak—physically, spiritually, emotionally—and so they're not engaged. The church is to come alongside and uphold them. I am so thankful there is no "survival of the fittest" in the faith. Jesus said, "I will not leave you comfortless." He sends the Holy Spirit, and He works through His church to uphold the weak.

Romans 15:1 says, "We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Galatians 6 says, "You who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness... Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Philippians 2 calls us to esteem others better than ourselves and to look out for the interests of others, with the same mind that was in Christ.

One of my favorite verses is Matthew 11:28—and it's my birthday, November 28—"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Be yoked to Me. A yoke joined two oxen so they bore the same load; the stronger one would carry more, and the weaker one would be strengthened in the process. Jesus says, "My yoke is easy, My burden is light." As He leads us by His Spirit, we do the same for one another—running the race alongside the weak so they will be strengthened.

Be Patient with All

I recently saw a man wearing a shirt that said "Under construction." We did a junior high camp with that theme once, and the shirt read, "Under construction—expect delays." That's the honest truth about every one of us. Even Paul said in Philippians 3, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on." If we take an honest assessment, we'd all say, "Be patient with me." And if we want patience from others, we must extend it to them.

We live in a culture that does not value patience—we hate to wait. Amazon is developing octocopters to deliver packages in thirty minutes because we won't wait. We avoid the Starbucks line, we avoid the drive-thru with two cars in it. We're trained to be impatient, and we're impatient with one another. I confess I'm an impatient person, and God constantly reminds me: be patient with people, because we're all under construction.

Do Not Render Evil for Evil

Verse 15: "See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all." Sadly, many in the body of Christ think we're justified in retribution because someone wronged us first—"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

But those words, found three times in the Pentateuch, are a limitation, not a prescription. Before God gave them, it was an anything-goes society: "If you wound me, I'll kill you." We see this in Genesis 4, where Lamech says, "I have killed a man for wounding me." God limits that so the punishment fits the crime. It was never meant as permission for personal vengeance.

"Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord." Micah 6:8 tells us what God requires: "to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." We love to flip those—"I love justice." No: love mercy; do justly. Our nature loves justice when someone else gets pulled over, but when it's us we plead for mercy. As Ephesians 4:32 says, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."

This Is the Will of God

Verse 16: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Rejoice, pray, give thanks. You may say, "I've heard this before"—and it's good that I remind you, so we won't be discouraged, weak, or led away by idleness.

"In everything give thanks." Many of us will go through difficult things this year when giving thanks is hard. But this is the explicitly stated will of God for us, and He gives us His divine power to do it.

Just this past week, on New Year's Eve, we got a call. Patty, a sister in the church, was rushed to the hospital with a bleed in her head. Pastor Mark, Ron Hendricks, and I went to pray with the family. The next day her husband Dave texted me: standing in the emergency room, looking at his wife of thirty years, his heart was breaking, fearing he might lose his soulmate. Yet in the midst of it, God restored a long-broken family relationship—one they'd had no communication with for years. Dave was giving thanks in the hardest thing he'd faced in a long time. That's a fulfillment of the word of God, and it happens because God works in us.

Re-engage

So my encouragement as we begin this year: don't be idle, church. If you've been discouraged, find someone in the body to pray with you, and go back to the Scriptures to be encouraged. The Lord is close to the faint-hearted, the weeping, and the weak. He comes alongside to strengthen us. But re-engage. Get connected.

All of this is possible because our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. And knowing we are feeble-minded and forgetful—even with our event boundaries—He gave us something tangible. The God who said, "You shall make no image or likeness," gave us bread and cup, something we can hold, see, smell, and taste, engaging all our senses as a regular reminder of what He did to give us the power to live out these things.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You for Your great word. We ask that You would strengthen our hearts. Lord, give us today, as we remember Your body that was broken for us, a clear reminder of the strength and power You have for us. You endured the shame and suffering of the cross—something we will never fully comprehend, because it was more than physical; it was spiritual. God, speak to our hearts now as we worship You. In Jesus' name, amen.