Part of God’s Team: Our Primary Identity
(2 Thessalonians 3:1-5)
1. Immaturity begins with birth: at first, it is all about us.
2. Some mature more than others.
3.Typically, we then are wrapped up in our families, which are extensions of ourselves. Some never advance beyond this.
4. If so, next stage is local church, then the churches in our nation...but God demands we get even less self-centered -- concern about reaching the world.
5. The local church is healthy when people are committed to it. When they attend faithfully, invite friends, serve in ministry, and support the work with tithes and offerings, the local church is able to go forward. And local churches need folks who will stand by her and take ownership of the church.
6. But churches, like individuals, can become so introverted that they fail to see that their church is part of the larger Kingdom of God. Surprisingly, this introversion seems worse in either very small churches or very large ones, both of which are focused on the numerical growth of their particular congregation.
7. But a church does not exist in isolation. It is part of the broader body of Christ and needs to be contributing toward fulfilling the Great Commission beyond its county, state, or nation.
8. We are in partnership with others, and partnership basically means fellowship. This was true in the early church where churches planted by Paul were concerned not only about their congregation, but also about Paul’s ministry elsewhere. And Paul was not merely concerned about the new churches he was planting, he also cared about the growth of established churches.
9. And though our cultures and situations vary, when it comes to fellow born-again Bible-believing Christians, we are in this together. We cannot share with everyone, but we can share and participate with some.
Main Idea: We can fellowship with God and His workers around the world, no matter where we are.
I. We Share One Another’s MINISTRY Through Prayer (1-2)
• The command to pray is in the present (προσευχεσθε proseuchesthe), meaning "Be praying”
“Be praying”
A. For EFFECTIVENESS (1)
1. SPREADING the Word of God
The Greek word is related to the word for running…the Word of God is the runner, and our prayers help it to pick up its pace…
The Gospel spread at a fast pace in the first century…
Then it slowed because of (1) ignorance of the Scriptures and (2) lack of missionary zeal
We are living at a point in time where the Gospel is spreading faster than ever…
Is Islam the Fastest-Growing Religion? Guess Again
by Dinesh D’Souza
Many people think Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. Not true. Islam is growing fast, but Christianity is growing faster. Indeed there are twice as many Christians as Muslims in the world today and the gap is becoming larger. Moreover, Christianity has become the world’s only religion that is truly universal.
Islam too has a wide reach, but Islam has only a small presence in the United States, Canada, Central and South America, and Australia. Christianity, by contrast, is strong everywhere in the world except the Middle East. Islam is growing mainly through reproduction, which is to say by Muslims having large families. Christianity is growing both through reproduction and through conversion.
So if Christianity is growing so fast, why don’t we see it? Because the growth is occurring mainly in Asia and Africa. The full story is told in What’s So Great About Christianity but here are some examples. In 1900 less than 10 percent of Africa was Christian. Now it’s around 50 percent. That’s an increase from 10 million Christians in 1900 to more than 350 million today. The story is pretty much the same in Asia. China now has an underground church numbering in the tens of millions. In Korea, Christians outnumber Buddhists and, in a remarkable historical reversal, now send missionaries to Europe to convert the natives. Some Asian and African churches have so many members that pastors have to tell people not to come very Sunday, because there is not enough room in the pews. [source: http://islamdom.blogspot.com/2007/10/christianity-growing-faster-than-islam.html]
American Christians must remember that the U.S. is only 5% of the world’s population…
2. HONORING the Word of God
Rejecting the Word is the most obvious form of not honoring the Word. But also note:
The Word of God is honored not when we dust off a Bible, but when we read it and practice it; we might call this active listening. Our positive response to the Word honors it. Passively listening to do dishonors it. An unopened Bible dishonors the Word. An unread Bible dishonors the Word. Reading the Word as part of a meaningless, dead ritual dishonors the Word.
In Luke 6:46, Jesus asks a piercing question, “Why do you call me, ’Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
B. For SAFETY (2)
1. DELIVERANCE from wicked and evil people
2. In environments HOSTILE to the faith
The article is used with the word faith, thus “the faith.” This could refer to hostility from false teachers who professed some form of Christianity. It seems too obvious to state that most people did not believe in Christ.
We can fellowship with God and His workers around the world, no matter where we are.
II. We Share One Another’s GOD (3)
Brothers and sisters in Christ with different color skin who speak in languages that sound to us like gibberish serve the same God as we.
A. A God Who is FAITHFUL
If God were not faithful, none of His attributes would be constant. Because He is faithful, He is trustworthy and dependable. Because He is faithful, He is ALWAYS good, holy, loving, and competent. Although His attributes integrate into a whole, they do not vacillate.
James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
B. A God Who STRENGTHENS
C.A God Who PROTECTS us from the evil one
John 17:15 (Jesus praying), "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."
Ephesians 6:16, "In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one."
We can fellowship with God and His workers around the world, no matter where we are.
III. We Share A Common MUTUAL Relationship With God (4-5)
We have different cultures, different levels of wealth and/or education, but our born-again brothers and sisters throughout the world relate to the same God in the same way we do. This is true not only geographically, but temporally. Believers 100 years ago related to God as we do today.
A. Our desire to Obey and SERVE Him (4)
Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
2 Thes. 3:4 We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do the things we command.
Pastor Ed Wood comments, "What if an army were run with the same lack of obedience, order, and discipline that we often see in the local church? It would never win the war. If soldiers attended drill whenever they felt like it, they would never be equipped to face the enemy. If the recruits disobeyed their officers’ orders the way some church members disobey the Word of God, they would be court-martialed. A soldier obeys primarily out of loyalty and fear. But a Christian has much higher motives for obedience: God’s love and Christ’s return." [Source: sermoncentral]
The idea of being commanded does not sit well with our modern culture. We prefer suggestions for us to consider, not commands for us to obey…but God does not need to candy coat His directives…He does not need to work with our egos…God can get away with what we cannot get away with, because He is God!
B. His WORK within us (5)
The Rabbis were concerned that people directed their hearts toward God in the sense of praying towards the Temple:
"Our Rabbis taught: A blind man or one who cannot tell the cardinal points should direct his heart towards his Father in Heaven, as it says, And they pray unto the Lord. If one is standing outside Palestine, he should turn mentally towards Eretz Israel, as it says, And pray unto Thee towards their land. If he stands in Eretz Israel he should turn mentally towards Jerusalem, as it says, And they pray unto the Lord toward the city which Thou hast chosen." [Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Berakoth Folio 30a]
Paul, here, is dealing with something deeper: the motives and desires of our hearts:
1. He directs our hearts into His LOVE
This can mean several things:
(1) We can better experience God’s love;
(2) We can better appreciate and understand God’s love, or
(3) We can draw closer to God and thus have more of His love to share with others…or a combination…
2. He directs our hearts into Christ’s PERSEVERANCE
Does this mean that we better appreciate Christ’s perseverance for us in His sufferings, or to imitate Christ’s example of endurance, or does it refer to letting Christ help us to persevere in life’s trials? I think the latter.
Hebrews 12:1-3, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
We can fellowship with God and His workers around the world, no matter where we are.
