1. Paul was the kind of guy that didn’t quit.
a. His heart LARGE, his energy levels HIGH, his love DEEP.
b. His first calling was to GO INTO ALL THE WORLD and share the gospel. When speaking to Ananias Jesus says…
Acts 9.15-16 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. 16 "For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake."
SO Paul did just that… he went out and shared the gospel, planted churches, & established leadership.
• Then he would move on to next city. A city, an area w/ a need.
Romans 15.20 And so I have made it my aim to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man’s foundation,
• We know now looking back, that God used Him greatly!
• His small, tiny life affected literally millions of souls!
APP: It’s a great encouragement to us who are not looking back, but looking forward.
• If you’re prone to look back this morning…
• THEN what you’ll see is pain & sorrow & regret.
• BUT GOD IS NOT DONE WITH YOU YET…
Phil. 3.12-14 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
NOW: It’s neat to see Paul’s passion & love for all the churches.
• Let’s flip over to 2 Corinthians 11.22-28
• He loved them! He cared for them. He prayed for them.
• And it broke his heart when false teachers & wolves & SIN would enter in after he left to destroy God’s work.
THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED w/ the church in Thessalonica.
• Paul was there for 3 Sabbaths teaching the young church.
• What a time that must have been as they were taught very deep and significant doctrines.
• But envious men stirred up evil men from the marketplace (Acts 17) and gathered a mob setting the city in an uproar.
• Paul and Silas were sent away to Berea immediately!
SO IN THAT VOID, false teachers with their false teachings arrived.
• The poor little church was confused about the resurrection, the Rapture of the Church, the 2nd Coming of Jesus.
• They were FEARFUL for their loved ones who had died.
• On top of that, they were discouraged by all the persecution.
• And we see, in this 2nd letter, they were also becoming DISOBEDIENT, specifically by refusing to work expecting someone else to take care of them.
• Some of the believers had concluded that the Lord’s coming was SO NEAR, that they ought to just quit their jobs and spend their time waiting for Him, while mooching off the church!
SO WORD of all this reaches Paul again and he pens this letter probably within just a few months, or even a year of the first letter.
• IN CH1, Paul reminds them of God’s goodness and His justice.
• As he deals with their persecutions first.
I. (1:1-4) Your Growing Faith!
1. (1-2) Grace & Peace
a. Paul opened his letters in a typically w/ a powerful greeting.
b. He says, I’m here with Silas & Timothy… and we love you.
c. Grace: ‘Charis’, the Greek greeting of the day.
d. Peace: ‘Shalom’, the Hebrew greeting of then and now.
NOTE: We say ‘HEY’, or ‘What’s Up?’
• But Paul commends them to the grace & peace of God!
• It would be cool if this came back today. Grace! Peace!
NOTICE that it’s GRACE first, then Peace. Always in that order.
• Why? Because you will never really know & experience the PEACE OF GOD unless first you receive His great grace!
APP: I believe that for some of you, God is using that TURMOIL in your hearts & lives to draw you closer to Him.
• So that His grace my be magnified & highlighted & received!
• So that you might wholly depend upon Him & not yourself.
2 Cor. 12.8-9 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2. (3-4) Your faith is growing.
a. Remember this is a young church but Paul is boasting about them wherever he goes.
b. Their faith, their love, their patience is encouraging!
c. Word patience literally, “bear up under a heavy load”
d. The persecutions there were difficult.
REMEMBER there are two types of tribulation in the Bible.
• There is the one that comes from being a Christian in a world that rejects Jesus Christ. It comes from your flesh, from the world, from the demonic realm.
John 16.33 "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
• We can & should expect this because Satan doesn’t like the work God is doing in our lives.
• There is also that GREAT TRIBULATION that will come down from God upon a Christ-rejecting world. – Revelation 6.15-17
NOTE: I’m often asked, “How does faith grow?”
• “It’s hard for me to trust God more than I do right now.”
• “I find that I’m lacking so much in my faith.”
• “I can relate to the apostles when they asked Jesus flat out:”
Luke 17.5 And the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."
THE BIBLE SAYS that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. There is no shortcut.
• Expose yourself as much as you can to the teaching of God’s Word, reading through it, studying it, memorizing it.
• AND Exercise the faith that you have. Do what God’s word is telling you to do. Don’t do what it tells you not to do.
• Follow through with those things God lays on your heart and together we’ll see your faith grow exceedingly, your love abounding, and your patience growing.
II. (1:5-12) Your Growing Persecution!
1. (5-6) Suffering for the Kingdom of God
a. Yes, they were going through tough times, but it wasn’t from God, it was from men.
b. And all Paul is saying here is that all of the troubles they were facing were proof that they were believers.
c. Jesus Himself said it would be tough following Him.
John 15.20-21 "Remember the word that I said to you, ’A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 "But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
APP: I’m learning more and more to embrace the hardships in life.
• Because God does a great work in me through them.
• Now I don’t like them any more than U do, but they’re needed!
• YOU Know, God will bring them my why right when I need them, not a second too soon or too late.
NOTE: I don’t always know what I need.
• I think from time to time I know, but I really don’t.
• But God does. My Son Ed needs some patience… WHOA!
• There’s my boy Ed, He needs some love… OUCH!
Someone once said to me, “I just need to win the lottery!”
• Then my financial troubles will go away and I’ll be A-OK!
• Nope! Lottery won’t do it.
Ask Evelyn Adams who won the lottery, not just once but twice to the tune of some $5 million dollars. Today the money is gone and Adams lives in a rented trailer.
"Everybody wanted my money. Everybody had their hand out. I never learned one simple word in the English language -- ’No.’ I wish I had the chance to do it all over again. I’d be much smarter about it now," says Adams who also lost money at the slot machines in Atlantic City.
OR WILLIAM BUD POST who won 16.2 million dollars in the lottery but now lives in poverty receiving food stamps.
A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his winnings. It wasn’t his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and a restaurant in Sarasota, Fla., -- two ventures that brought no money back and further strained his relationship with his siblings.
Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill collector.
Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.
Personally I know, the best thing for me is God’s will. Even if I don’t understand it, or don’t like it, or don’t want it.
• Father knows best & I’m learning more & more to trust Him!
3. (7-10) A coming Day of Judgment.
a. While there will be a day of rest for you soon, there will also be a Day of divine justice.
b. Let’s flip over to Psalm 73 for a moment.
c. Asaph is struggling, a lot like these guys, & maybe you.
d. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t feel good. It’s rotten!
e. Until I went into the sanctuary of the Lord 73:17!!
NOTE: Eternity is a lot longer than what’s happening right now.
• It’s so easy to lose sight of that in this world
• Especially in having so much, being blessed abundantly.
• You DON’T need to feel bad because God has blessed you but you do need to be aware that those blessings:
• Can so quickly become a curse if they begin to take our eyes off Jesus Christ!
V8 gives us a hint on who the judgment of God will come upon.
• Those that DO NOT OBEY the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• Jesus came to save sinners. His sacrifice was THE NECESSARY PRICE to redeem man to God.
• If He is truly God and this is truly His plan, then we have to accept it or reject it.
John 1.11-13 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
AND… there is coming that DAY v10 (we studied in-depth 1 Thess 5) when the Day of grace is replaced with the Day of Judgment.
• And one of the most sad things about a person that rejects Jesus is that they will be separated from the presence of the Lord!
NOTE: There are a lot of descriptions of hell in the Bible…
• Everlasting destruction, darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth.
• But the greatest is this separation from God’s love.
• It will be horrible & devastating.
But, on the other hand it will AWESOME & AMAZING to see Him!
• To be in His presence, to enjoy His company! WOW!
1 Corinthians 13.12-13 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
4. (11-12) We pray for you always.
a. Remember what Jesus told his disciples?
Luke 21.36 "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."
That’s Paul’s prayer for the church: counted worthy of His calling.
• And that you would fulfill ALL the good pleasure of His will!
Paul SAYS: I’m praying that you can come to a place where you will be so completely yielded to His perfect will for your life.
• That your life here on earth would right in line with God’s heart.
• I know times are tough. I know you’re going through it.
• But I also know God will be glorified in and through it all!
GUYS… I know sometimes we see our worst in trials.
• Some of you even wonder if you’re growing at all?
• Life seems to be one trial after another.
• “I still struggle with this. I’m overcome by that.”
• But even in the struggles, there is blessing & fruit.
• The growing pains are part of the process.
AND Paul’s prayer becomes a model for us as we pray for another.
He prayed that they might be WORTHY. Trials don’t make a person, they simply reveal what a person is made of.
• God knows our hearts even before the trial, but we don’t.
He Prayed for their WALK. Paul wanted them to press on, move forward, and not allow these things to weary them!
• He wanted them to trust in the living God.
1 Timothy 4:10 For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.
Finally Paul prayed for their WITNESS. Jesus will be glorified in His saints when they return with him (1:10)
• But he can also be glorified in our lives today.
• That we might be those vessels of honor to a world that so desperate needs to be in a right relationship with Him!
• Let’s close with Matthew 5.13-16
