April 19, 2025 - 2 Thessalonians 3:3-5 - "Confidence in the LORD"

2 Thessalonians 3:3-5

"But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil. And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ."

Here in verse four, Paul expresses a confidence in the Lord. People can flippantly say that, "I know sure as my own name that this is the will of the Lord." We tend to use that expression a little bit too lightly. Many times we make our plans, and if everything seems to be going well, we just assume, "Well, I'm confident the Lord's in this." Yet, many times the Lord will let us run for a while and then, like a dog on a chain, jerk that chain back. All the while, we know that the Lord never had His hand off of us, but gave us freedom to run a certain direction for a while, but in the end makes us see that in reality, our confidence wasn't in the Lord at all. He uses such times to teach us through it.

It is a fact that any who truly have confidence in the Lord, that faith is of God. It causes them to trust the Lord and have their confidence solely in Him. This is the language of the Apostle Paul here in the Inspired Word, and it's consistent with the rest of scripture. See how verse three declares, "But the Lord is faithful." We aren't faithful. It's not even us keeping our faith. Everybody says, "Keep the faith, brother." What does that mean? Verse 3 states, "the Lord is faithful who shall stablish you and keep you from evil." It's Him keeping His children. If it's true faith, Paul says, “We have confidence in the LORD.” He didn't even say I have confidence in you. He does not tell his readers, "Now that you have faith, God's expecting you to increase it." He said, "We have confidence in the LORD touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you." Here, then, we see His sovereign will. In the outworking of that faith and the evidence of it in the lives of His children, it's still of the Lord. Our confidence is in the Lord. In all three verses, who is the acting agent? It's the LORD. The LORD is faithful. We have confidence in the LORD. And in verse five, "the LORD direct your hearts into the love of God." That word "LORD" means Sovereign Magistrate, and Supreme Judge. It's His work of grace in the heart that is the cause of any persevering, and by which He keeps His children.

How is it then that we who are God's children have confidence in the LORD?

First, it's by God's faithfulness. You see in verse three, the word "faithful." It's a word that refers to somebody who keeps their word. It rightly defines God's faithfulness. He does not change His Word. There's not even a shadow of turning in Him (James 1:17). It says the Lord is faithful. What does that little word tell you? It has to do with who God is in His very being. It has to do with character. It is in the present tense which means that His faithfulness is permanent and does not change. Such is the permanent character of God.. It matches up with every one of His attributes. When Scripture speaks of His holiness, for example, who He is in faithfulness agrees with His holiness. The same applies to His love. It's a holy love. His mercy is holy mercy. His justice is a holy justice, and His faithfulness in in accord with His love, mercy, holiness, justice and grace. We may put God's faithfulness with any of these attributes and we thereby are assured that none of His attributes can ever change or diminish. God is faithful to exercise His holiness in every way, as well as His love. He cannot diminish His justice or holiness in order to save the sinner. In His faithfulness to His Son, He purposed that the LORD Jesus come in the flesh to faithfully satisfy the Father's law and justice in order that He might be just to justify every one for whom the LORD paid the debt.

Second, we see this confidence in the Lord established because of His sovereign will. How can we have confidence that we are the LORD'S, or anybody else for that matter? It's because there's predictability in how God exercises His will in the lives of those for whom He has purposed salvation. Certain evidence will be reflected in their lives, testifying to God's faithful work of grace in them and for them. No one likes to be told they're not a believer. People get upset when you question whether they are the LORD's or not. When you have doubts, all you have to say to them is, "I hear what you're saying, but the words and your doctrine do not match how the scripture describes who a believer is, and therefore, I don't have any confidence that you are the LORD's." James wrote of this in his epistle, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him" (James 2:14)?

Paul states, "We have confidence in the Lord touching you that you both do and will do the things which we command you." What is the source of his confidence? It's the fact that this is how God works when He saves sinners. There is a consistent outworking of His grace in the hearts and lives of sinners that He has saved by the finished work of Christ at the cross. It doesn't mean we all come with the same experience, or necessarily march in lock step, but we do all come through the same doctrine, the same Gospel, which is the declaration of the LORD Jesus. And we grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord (2 Peter 3:18). To grow in grace means we grow in our need of grace in the light of the knowledge of the LORD Jesus. The closer we are drawn to the light, the more we see our sinfulness, and the more grace He bestows to keep us looking to Christ.

There's a oneness that the Lord gives to His people. That's why this confidence is based upon God's sovereign will. And that word "confidence" means "to be persuaded of the Lord." When Paul says, "we have confidence in the Lord," He is declaring, "we have this confidence OF the LORD. He is saying that any confidence we may have, true confidence is from the LORD. The Scriptures tell us that "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure," (Philippians 3:13). Where God has purposed salvation, there's evidence of it. How? By submission to His will. These are characteristics, not perfectly, but a pattern of life, whereby if God has manifest His saving grace in us, we're brought to bow again and again to His will. We may not understand His work of providence, we may not understand how it all unfolds, but there is a bowing to Him in the unfolding of His will, as did His Son the LORD Jesus, "not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42). Paul is confident in the LORD, that what he commands them as an apostle of the LORD, they will follow, not because he is an apostle, but because of Whose apostle he is, and his doctrine is that of the LORD Jesus.

Third, we see in verse 5, confidence that is of the LORD and in the LORD is entirely the work of God's grace in the heart. "And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ." That word “direct” is interesting. It means to remove all hindrances, and the tense is to do so definitively. Paul is saying, "the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." That could mean a deeper love for Him, which is what we need, or even a deeper love for one another in the body of Christ. If we are to love Him as He is set forth here, He must direct His love to our hearts by His grace. He must remove all those hindrances and encumbrances of this flesh that impede our loving Him as He is worthy, but also keep us from loving other members of the body of Christ as redeemed and justified sinners. He does this by His pure saving grace alone.

Therefore, the grace of God directs our hearts to God Himself in love for what He has done for us. We love Him because He first loved us," (1 John 4:19). As the Spirit of God, by His grace, directs the hearts of His elected children into the love of the LORD Jesus, it is the same love with which He loves His people. We need to be reminded of that when things are going contrary to what we imagine. We begin to think, maybe He doesn't love me. In such cases, God is faithful to direct our hearts into the love of God. His love is unchanging. If he loved us from everlasting, He continues to love forever. Who can separate us from the love of God? We know, if Christ has died for us, who shall condemn us? We need the LORD to remind us again and again of His unchanging, faithful love for us. That then is where the confidence originates. It is in the Lord. And then it says, "into the patient waiting for Christ." That could mean waiting for His coming again, when He comes for His own at the end of time, or waiting for Him coming again with His presence, to the heart, to comfort and strengthen His children in the face of every temptation and adversity.

From beginning to end, it is the work of God not only to save those He chose from eternity, and for whom Christ came and laid down His life. How do we have confidence in the Lord? It's His faithfulness, His sovereign will, and that work of grace in the heart that continues to cause us to look to Him.