Let's turn in our Bibles together to Numbers chapter 24, and then we're going to turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, and let's stand for the reading and hearing of the Word of God. Numbers 24. This is an interesting confession of Balaam. You wonder how it would be connected to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. You'll see a little later in the preaching of the Word. Balaam, who was not a reliable, godly, faithful prophet, rather the opposite. He was a man for hire who basically would pronounce curses in accordance with the amount of money that he would be given. He was interested in money. And he was, like many preachers for hire today, would say whatever you wanted him to say if you gave him money. However, what happened to him is in this case, he was overcome by the power of God. And he was no longer able to say what he was paid to say. He could only say what the Lord compelled him to say. And this is his testimony, listen. So he took up his oracle and said, the utterance of Balaam, the son of Beor and the utterance of a man whose eyes are opened. The utterance of him who hears the words of God and has knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, who falls down with eyes wide open. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob. A scepter shall rise out of Israel and batter the brow of Moab and destroy all the sons of Tumult. Now we turn to the New Testament. There, we keep reading in 2 Thessalonians, just the last verses. Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way. The Lord be with you all. The salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is a sign in every epistle, so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of God endures forever. Let me turn in the Word of God to 2 Thessalonians 3. And the Lord willing, this morning, we finish our study of this book together. We're at the closing words of another letter of the Apostle Paul, a very personal letter to a much-loved gathering of saints in the city of Thessalonica, a city where Paul himself established the church in his missionary journey. We read about that in Acts chapter 17. Under significant opposition, but in God's mercy, by the power of the gospel preached, a gathering of saints had formed and it had endured for a time. It had grown. Paul, after ministering there, wrote two letters, and we have those 1 and 2 Thessalonians. And those letters are filled with the apostle's affection for the church. They are filled with his interest in their good. They give us a little window into the life of that church as it continued. It began in persecution, it continued in persecution, hardship, trials, had problems, theological problems, They didn't understand the nature of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Some were denying that. They had practical problems. They had lazy Christians. We saw that in the last two sermons from 2 Thessalonians. They had doctrinal struggles. They had practical trials. They had persecution. They had all the troubles that you would imagine a church and settled in the ancient church period or began in the ancient church period under the ministry of the apostles in a hostile time facing the Roman Empire in opposition, even often from Jewish countrymen, difficulty inside and outside the church. They were in hard days. Now, we study quite a few New Testament letters. Matter of fact, I was thinking about it since I have been pastoring here at Covenant. Colossians and Ephesians, Titus, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, then 1st and 2nd Peter, 1st and 2nd John, and then many other times from the other epistles. And as we have done so, again and again and again, we have come to familiar opening and closing words. And every time we have done so, I have preached a sermon on familiar opening and closing words. And in Paul's, and also Peter's particularly, right of the letter of Hebrews, almost actually most of the epistles, almost every one, whether James or John or Peter or Paul, We have a very small collection, if you looked at them all together, of opening and closing words. And they're usually comprised of names, greetings, the names of the apostle, greetings often to certain people in the church, and then the name of God, and these three words, grace, mercy, and peace. Now, not all of them in every letter, sometimes just grace. 1 Thessalonians, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. But the words grace, mercy, and peace are fundamental, necessary, important. Now, not only do we preach on them every so many months, probably at least once a year. Probably at least once a year. The last 12 years, I've probably preached one sermon a year on these words. Every service you ever go to here at Covenant begins and ends with some form of the same words. More than that, these words have been used by God every Sabbath day. to be placed on His people, from Aaron and the priests in Numbers 6, all the way to the very last verse of the Bible, Revelation 22, the very last verse, is the promise of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with His church. Now, there are some words that we use that are like that. There are some words that are so important, so fundamental, that they are worth saying again and again for a lifetime. How about some names? You children, dad and mom, how many times do you say those words again and again and again? Why? They mean something to you. You love your parents. Your dad and your mom. How are you parents? You know your children. I see my Emma and my Katie. I see a few more children here and there's probably many more listening online. Think of, in our family, we have the newest name is Naomi. And her name is probably said more in our house than anybody else's name. Everybody, every day, sees her and greets her. We can't say it enough. How about phrases? I love you. I was thinking this week, how many times have I said that to Worley and to our eight children? Every day. Now, I hope they're not tired of it. We have a little habit in our family that at the end of every phone call, almost every phone call. We say, love you, bye. Now, why are some words so important? Repetition, in this case, does not diminish their meaning. But rather, their profound meaning demands repetition. I'm going to say that again. Certain words, where the repetition of these words does not diminish their meaning, but the profound depths of their meaning demand that they be repeated again and again. Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ are words of such profound meaning that in God's communication to His people, He wants you to hear them again and again and again. Just like you would say to those nearest to you, again and again and again, I love you every day. God has been repeating these words weekly to his people, weekly at least, perhaps in the temple worship daily. I don't know how often Aaron and his son said these words, but surely at least weekly. For millennia, thousands of years, these words carry profound truths about God. They're linked to his own essential character and nature. They're connected to his name, his presence, and his power towards his people. They are intricately linked to your salvation. It's beginning and all the way to the end. They're words used by God together with His own name to place His name on His people, on you. There are words by which He identifies Himself with His people and His people with Himself. And in those words, He promises Himself to His people. Well, we're going to look at a few things about these words. First of all, we're gonna look at verse 17, a little note on Paul's signature at the end of the letter and how this adds weight to these words. And then we're gonna look at the verses 16 and 18, the promise of peace, the promise of grace. And then we are going to look at The question again, why the Lord repeats these words to us. So Paul's signature for a moment here, verse 17, at the end of the letter, Paul writes, the salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is a sign in every epistle, so I write. This reminds you of something very simple that the, as I said a moment ago, I said it, I implied it when I mentioned all the names of different apostles who write in the New Testament, but these words are of apostolic origin. We have a call for divine blessing on the church in verses 16 and 18 and sandwiched nestled in between the declaration of authenticity of the letter as Paul says that this letter was written with my own hand. Now, what is exactly happening here? Why does Paul have to write this? Well, because he very often used a scribe. He didn't have Microsoft Word. He had a secretary who had another piece of paper, and the ancient Greeks tell us that there were some that were very skilled. They had a special shorthand, and they could take down, like a court reporter, they could take down human speech and record it exactly as fast as it was spoken. At the end of Romans chapter 16, we even have the name of one of these scribes, Tertius, who himself adds a greeting, and then Paul finishes it all. Paul used these scribes, and he would dictate letters. At the end of the letter here, Paul then says the salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is a sign in every epistle, so I write. And he's telling us what his practice is. To authenticate the letter, he finishes it with his own signature, with his own hand, his own handwriting. And he's saying, this is my practice, I always do this. He's saying, so I write. Now, why does he have to say the salutation of Paul with my own hand, which is a sign in every epistle, so I write? Because the letters would be read to the churches. Colossians, the end of Colossians tells us that Paul intended that his letters would be read to the churches and not just even just one local church, but nearby churches. Move this thing around and read it to everybody. And so the reader, surely after worship, people could look at the letter, but Paul was intent on the hearer's understanding from the first moment they heard the letter read that he himself with apostolic authority was sending this letter to the church. The salutation of Paul with my own hands, so I write. Again, 1 Corinthians 16, he does the same thing, authenticating these letters which were to be read. What is being authenticated then is that this letter is indeed by the hand of Paul who is an apostle of Jesus Christ. You need to think about that. He's a witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He himself was taught directly by Jesus Christ. He saw the living, resurrected Jesus. We read that in 1 Corinthians 15, two weeks ago, that he, as one born out of due time, that he himself witnessed the living Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. He saw Jesus alive. He's a witness to the resurrection. He was taught by the Lord Jesus Christ. In his ministry, The ministry of the apostles was directly linked to the power and ministry of Jesus in a special and unique way in human history. A small collection of men designated to be ambassadors of God. The writers of the New Testament scriptures directly called and commissioned by Jesus Christ to speak and to write the Word of God, holy men moved by the Spirit of God, writing special inspired letters. And the apostle emphasizes this when he says, the salutation of Paul with my own hands, so I write. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. So the way you listen to and read 2 Thessalonians and all of the scriptures, Is it the voice of God? Now, let's go think about it more clearly. God has chosen, you know, you and I have phones and we use a phone to communicate. It's a way to get your words to another place. Right now, this service is being live streamed and my words are going to many other places. How did God determine to send his word across the earth? How did he determine to communicate it? And this is where we go back to the reading from Numbers. He determined to do so by using instruments in history, human instruments, to give and impress upon them his own will, his own revelation, and have them communicate it to other people, either in writing or in preaching. Now, there were a select few, the prophets and the apostles, who wrote inspired scripture. They also spoke. They also preached. After the end of the apostolic era, the church has the Word, the written Word, and we take what was written, the inspired testimony of the apostles, and we preach that. Nothing new. I was talking to a neighbor the other day, and the question was, I was explaining preaching ministry, and I don't have anything inspirational to say to you from my own wells of wisdom. I don't have them. I need the Word as much as you do. The only thing I can preach is what the Word says. But this is the Word. And going back to what Balaam said. It's powerful words. He said, this is the utterance of a man whose eyes are open, the utterance of him who hears the words of God, who has the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, who falls down with eyes wide open. And you look at Isaiah, you look at Jeremiah, The prophets would all testify, Paul, John, and the revelation, a vision from God falling down on their faces before him, but then going to speak. That's what Paul is saying when he says, the salutation with my own hand, Paul, so I write. He has a messenger, a conduit, a personal witness of God's divine revelation, ambassador, a carrier of a message from heaven. As a side here, that's what the Bible is. Read it every day. Cherish it. It's God's divine communication to you. Now, the words connected right around this reminder of the weight of inspired scripture. Now we're going to look at the content of these two verses. The weighty familiar words themselves. There's two things promised here. One is prayed for in verse 16, and one is promised in verse 18. And remember, these are the inspired words, the triune living God who inhabits eternity. Remember that He repeats them again and again because He wants you to hear them again and again. Remember that they come with the authority of the throne of heaven of God Himself first. May now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace always in every way the Lord be with you all The first thing that is promised is peace for the people of God God knows Because he made you That you are not a lifeless Robot But you have a mind the will and emotions He made you and fashioned you with all those things Last night we All of our phones and we have a lot of phones in our house five cell phones lit up with the tornado alerts, maybe some of you had those and We looked at the weather map and we said to ourselves, these storms look like they're headed right for our house, so we decided to go for a little drive, a little south in Greenville and pick up some slushies for the kids at QT and then drive back home. After the storms were passed, in our modern age, you can do this. You can have a phone in your car and you can see the track of the storms. You know where they are and where they aren't. We actually, for a while, were driving right at the edge of the storm, saw the lightning, the glory, the beauty, the power of these things. Astounding. But at the same time, we weren't in the path of them. We were safe from them. But while we were traveling, our little girl Naomi, because we got out of the house in a hurry, she was on edge the whole time, and she could tell that there was a little tension in the air, and her little heart was upset and she did something very unusual. She was crying in her seat. She kept crying and she wanted to be comforted. She knew that there was something different going on. Her heart was not at peace. God knows that about His children. Sometimes our hearts are troubled. Jesus said, do not let your hearts be troubled. God knows this happens to us. And so He gives us this promise. It comes in the form of a prayer for blessing. It's offered to the Lord of Peace, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. The Lord of Peace Himself. Paul is in this prayer, which is also a promise, encouraging the Thessalonians that Jesus Christ Himself, the Lord of Peace, and we know Him to be the Lord of Peace. He's the one who said, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. He's the prince of peace. He's the great peacemaker who promises peace, Ephesians 2, who himself is our peace. Paul is promising that the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ would be with the church. Now, there's three common ways that peace is used in the New Testament. There are perhaps more, but let me give you three. Because we're justified by faith, Paul says in Romans 5.1, we have peace with God. The great alienation, the war between God and sinners is over when you put your trust in Jesus Christ and you now have peace with God, Romans 5. Not at war, but you're at peace. Second peace is peace with our fellow man. And we are as much as lies within us to live at peace with all men. We are to be peaceable people. And we are to pray for wisdom, which is peaceable. We're not to be engaged in wars and fightings with each other, but to yield to one another. We're to be a peaceable people. And that is to characterize the life of the body of Jesus Christ, which means we have to spend a lot of time putting our passions in subjection for the sake of peace. Third, peace within, tranquility. Peace with God, peace with fellow man, peace within, tranquility. Christ here says to our hearts, like He said in the storm long ago, on the Sea of Galilee, peace be still. John 14 and verse 27, when Jesus says, My peace I give you, He says, not as the world gives do I give you. And then he says, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid. And there's a cascading series of realities. If we have peace with God, and we have peace in our relationships, there will also be peace in our hearts, tranquility. This is all worked by the Holy Spirit who settles our hearts. If you're not afraid of God, if you have peace in your relationship, You'll have peace in your heart, inner tranquility. It's all connected together. You can't divide them. You'll have the peace that passes all understanding, guards hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. How does this peace come to the believer? This is important now. It comes by word and spirit, where Christ communicates and assures us of His own divine presence. Look at the end of the verse. The Lord be with you all. The Lord be with you all. Now, in these words, at the end of these epistles, the beginning of these epistles is the promise of not only... You have to remember this. This is very important. Peace cannot be divorced from the presence and power of Jesus Christ Himself working by His Word and Spirit in your heart and life. So when He promises peace, He promises Himself who is our peace. Which is why you remember what He said to the disciples in Matthew 28. For lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. John 14 and verse 18. Again, Jesus is warning His disciples, warning them against inordinate, inward, troubled, an unsettled heart. A Christian is supposed to have a tranquil, peaceful heart. Do not let your hearts be troubled, Jesus said. Don't let it happen. Stop. Stop being anxious. There's an active pursuit of peace while peace is promised. And it's all wrapped up in the presence of Christ himself with his people. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. And he's done so in his spirit with his spirit. And then he's promised he's going to take us to a better place. He's the Lord who is our shepherd. We fear no evil. For God is with us. He's with us in the valley of the shadow of death. He's with us in the storms. He's with us. He prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. He promises that goodness and mercy will accompany us everywhere, all the time, all the days of our life, and that one day we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And that presence of Christ, together with His Word and Spirit, which promises and works peace, means that The believer can have a tranquil heart in storms. Maybe you're all anxious right now. Your heart feels coiled up like a spring. You're like the disciples in the boat. What was the problem? Master, we're perishing. Remember what Jesus did? He got up from his head on the pillow in the boat. He gets up. He just speaks a word to the wind in the waves. Peace be still. The entire storm is gone. And then he looks at them and he rebukes them for their little faith. We have peace because Christ is for us and with us, and he works and promises that inner tranquility in our hearts by his Word and Spirit. And right now, just like he spoke to the wind and the waves, when you hear the declaration of the peace of God for you and upon you, He's speaking to your heart like He spoke to the wind and the waves in the storm. And He's calling for and producing inner tranquility by His Word and Spirit. Which is why you need these familiar words. Because you need Him to work peace in you. We're like Peter, though, so often, aren't we? We look again at the waves and we tremble again and, Lord, I just can't do it. I can't make it. I can't go on. And he has to say again and again, week after week, my peace I give you. Grace is also promised. What is grace? Well, look at verse 18. It's the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. It comes from him, the one who is full of grace and truth. In Colossians 1, it also comes from Christ. Well, here it comes from Christ. In Colossians 1, it also comes from the Father. In Hebrews 10, it also comes from the Holy Spirit. What is it? You think of unmerited favor. It's more than unmerited favor. Grace, again, can't be separated or extracted from the Lord Jesus Christ any more than peace can. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul actually, when he writes to Titus, says that when Christ was made incarnate, and this goes back to John 1, the one who was full of grace and truth, that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ appeared. That when Jesus appeared, grace appeared. Now this makes sense. Grace is the unmerited favor of God, but it's not just bare unmerited favor. There are many times that you've had in your life where you have loved someone and you have been favorable towards them, but you have been unable to rescue or help them. Maybe you've had a sick family member who slowly got sicker and sicker and sicker and finally died. You loved them, you cared for them, you had their best interest in heart, you prayed for and wanted only to favor them and be favorable towards them, but they died. My family had that experience when my father died of Lou Gehrig's disease. How is grace different? It's unmerited favor linked to omnipotent power. Both. Both. can't be separated or extracted from Christ like some sort of magic potion. It is in Him. John 1 and verse 14, through Him and from the Godhead. Revelation 1 and 4, He Himself is grace incarnate. It's a word so connected to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the unmerited favor of God visited on worthy sinners that it has to make us think about His whole work, especially the cross. His victory there over sin and death, His triumph at the empty tomb. And this grace is then promised to the church again. What did it do in your life? Grace found you in your sins. This unmerited favor when you were running from God and rebellion against God, grace came, opened your eyes, set you free, turned you around. And then what is it doing now? It's transforming you with sanctifying power. You would not make one one nanometer of forward progress in sanctification if it wasn't for the divine grace of God working in you. Instead, you would just go backwards. You'd be worse every single day if this grace was not operative. You would descend into a pit of unimaginable rebellion against God. And then this grace promises to lead us all the way home. Use the words of Newton's hymn. Long-term preservation. And we are strengthened by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is that powerful, unmerited favor of God flowing from the Godhead. He himself is a gracious God. From the Godhead, through the Mediator, by the power of the Holy Spirit that brings sinners from death to life, transforms us after the image of Christ, and carries us all the way safely home to glory. That's what grace is. Notice what the text says. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Everybody. Now, this is very comforting because just before this text, we had the wandering, weak brother who was lazy, needed to be admonished. He needed grace. The strongest believer needed grace. The suffering believers in Thessalonica needed grace. The sick and the dying, 1 Thessalonians 4, they needed grace. Everybody. And the last words Jesus says to the church is, my grace is with you all. I place it on you with my name. And in so doing, as I promised grace and peace, I give you myself, Jesus Christ, the Lord of peace. and the God of grace. Now, now you see why you need these words. Now, hopefully, you understand why God repeats them to you again and again. In them, he promises himself to you, and in them, he declares what he will do in you and for you when you have him. He will settle your hearts and he will draw you closer to himself. He will give you a deeper sense of the peace that is yours between God and you by the blood of the cross of Jesus. He will promise to slowly grow and settle all of your relationships to make them better and better. He promises that when your heart gets so anxious and bound up, that he will loosen and free it again. And he promises that the grace that started you on your pilgrimage will carry you home. And he says, it's all in me for you, which means I am for you. This is why the Lord repeats these words to us. Because we so desperately need them. Remember that the Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Living. Powerful. These words are living and powerful. The words of our covenant God, filled with profound meaning and significance, And their repetition does not diminish their significance, but their repetition reminds us of the profundity of their significance. We're in strange times. Last night, tornadoes, South Carolina, two weeks ago, 25 more. I think we maybe up to 25 now, 22 weeks ago. Again, I said a moment ago last night, our family phones lit up. We had 20 minutes notice in the car. And we 20 minutes notice that these storms are coming. We got in the car and we got out of the path of storms. Wow. It's unsettling. Isn't it humbling reminder how weak we are. How about our nation? We have troubles right now, a lot of troubles. And if we're not, we keep going the way we're going, the sickness we're facing will be the small trouble and the economic Grief and sadness will be the greater trouble. And it doesn't mean there's an easy answer to the problems. But God's hand is heavy on us, and that can make us all feel anxious, can't it? Trying to do so many things in different ways. We're isolated from each other. We have all these things, and then we have the regular things we have to do, school and work and meals, and we have to repent of our own sins and seek peace in our homes and families. our churches, and we wonder about our health and our future and our life. These are times when anxiety can take a deep root. A world in its unrest is no less uncertain. It's like we're sailing at the edge of a storm every day. We don't know where it's going to break. Paul knew the same about the church at Thessalonica. He knew their desperate need. He knew that they were persecuted, that they were theologically weak, that they had troubles in the church, that Satan was unrelentingly attacking the church of Jesus Christ like he is right now. He knew his own need. He wrote to the church at Corinth, it is by the grace of God I am what I am. And so he says, now may the Lord himself give you peace Always in every way. The Lord be with you all. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. And these words capture a divine ministry of encouragement to the people of God in all our troubles. You ever feel like the promises of God are just slipping through your fingers? They evaporate. Troubles look big and the promises just disappear. This is when you need to hear God say to you, grace and peace. And you need to hang on. Two words here, prayer promises, fundamentally tied to God's divine character, attribute, and purposes. They proclaim this very simple thing, that in Jesus Christ, God is for us. And he has all of your interests, your best interests at heart. And he wants you to know that within and without. Call of the gospel is here to through gospel proclamation, proclaims the holiness of God, the sinfulness of humanity. And it says, flee from the wrath to come. The gospel proclamation also says this to you all. God is good, and His interest is that you would know His goodness. Paul says through the Romans, Romans chapter 2, it's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. If you have sins in your life right now that you're not willing to let go of, The warnings of God against sin, not enough for you? Let me set before you the goodness of God. It would be a shame, a terrible shame, the warnings of God. We could heed them all, but together with His warnings, He declares His goodness. His warnings are intended that we would turn from that way. His promises of goodness is that we would turn to Him. When He says to you, grace and peace, You bow your knee in humble repentance and adoration and love to Jesus Christ, the Lord of peace, the God of grace. I'll put it this simply, it's no wonder that there's a hell. What is it for? Going back to Romans 2, it's for people who despise the riches of His goodness, who said, we don't want it. Give me some trinket. God will say, if you didn't want me, you won't have me. But he says to his church, grace and peace. Hear him. God's interested in your present distresses. I said earlier last night when the tornado alert started going off on our phones and we jumped in the car and went south With the family, my little Naomi was unsettled. She couldn't be easily consoled. Marley actually had to switch seats with someone and sit next to her and hold her hand. And then we had to tell her, Naomi, we love you. It's okay. She needed to sleep, but she couldn't rest. She just needed someone to hold her close and say some familiar words. And this morning, that's what the Lord does with you. He draws you close and he gives you some familiar words so that you, again, can rest in him. Grace to you and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord our God, we cling to your words, repeated to us again and again, simple and profound, communicating to us the glory and power of Jesus Christ. And in him, we come to you, the Father, by the power of the Spirit and see the splendor of the Godhead communicated to us in a few words. Lord, we would respond by this declaration of love for us with our love to you. With all of our life, all of our moments, all of our days, we pray for grace that we would never despise your forbearance or goodness. Lord, that we again with open arms would embrace you by faith, even as you embrace us by your word. Lift our eyes again to Christ, we pray, and make us a peaceful, peaceable, tranquil, victorious people by your grace and peace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.