Sermon Podcast

Click on the button below to be notified whenever we post new sermons.
Subscribe to the Sermons at Heritiage Baptist Church!

Frustration And Emptiness Pt. 2
In part one of our study II Thessalonians 1:11-12, we examined carefully God’s “Preparation” in us. This then leads to our next heading, which is to answer the “why” raised in the first article. If God is working in us to prepare us, what is He preparing us for? Well, Paul here puts it in these words: “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would…fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness.” You see God delights to bless His children. He really does love you and wants what is best for us. He also desires (and in reality this is what is best for us) that we reflect His goodness. The point is this, God wants to bless us more than we can imagine. However, He only delivers the blessing when we are ready. Many times we have prayer requests or desires that we long for, yet God seems unwilling to give them. Why would this be so? Either He knows that it is best for us not to have it, or we just aren’t ready. Maybe we haven’t proven ourselves faithful by praying faithfully for it. Perhaps we have not fully surrendered to Him to really know what God’s will is. No matter what God’s reasons, our response needs to be the same: depend upon Him to make us what we ought to be and trust Him to bless us as we stay faithful to Him. After all, it is “our God (who) would…fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness,” not us.

This response of faith is the next point that Paul mentions in His prayer. He concludes verse 11 with the phrase “and the work of faith with power.” Again, it must be acknowledged that Paul truly attributes this work to God. He is praying that this church would enjoy a “work of faith with power.” So, it must be pointed out that faith is a fruit of the Spirit. It is something that God does in us. However, just like any other work of grace, we can frustrate it (Galatians 2:21). Faith does involve a decision of the will. When a lost sinner responds to the gospel, he makes a decision to believe, though God’s grace enables him to do it. Here though, the focus is not on saving faith, but on living faith--serving faith.

I remember well when my parents finally finished remodeling their “master suite.” I was so excited, no more twin bed in “the boys’ room,” I was to have my own bedroom. I remember the first night, I moved my clothes into the dressers, placed all my treasures in their appropriate places and plugged in my alarm clock. Later, it was time for bed, so I turned out the lights, climbed into bed, and looked over at my alarm clock to make sure that the little red light was on, indicating that I had turned on the alarm. To my surprise, the clock was completely blank! I jumped out of bed and ran to the light switch. To my surprise, the clock came on with the light. You see, the outlet was on the same circuit as the lights. To have power in the outlet, I had to have the switch on. The same is true in our Christian lives. We pray and go about to serve God only to find that the lights on the clock went out. We must realize that faith is the switch that turns on the power of God. God’s power (grace) is conducted to us through the Spirit much like the wiring in our houses; and just like any light in the house, the switch must be on to complete the circuit and shed light in the room. God’s power and our faith (a fruit or outcome of the Spirit having control of our lives) are intertwined. You cannot have power to do a great work for God without faith! It’s the only way that God can get all of the credit (glory)!