INTRODUCTION
• As we live our lives, it is easy to lose focus on what is important. It is so easy to get caught up in the problems of life that we forget where are focus is supposed to be.
• Throughout this letter to the church, Paul has reminded us that Jesus is going to return at any time and it is our job to be ready for Him to get us.
• We need to live our lives with a sense of urgency. Our walk with Jesus should be more than coming to church each or some Sundays. We are called to live our lives for the glory of God. We must live with an awareness of Jesus in our lives, with an awareness that Jesus is going to come back and take us with Him.
• As we close the letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul gives us some quick hit thoughts some reminders of things we need to focus on as we strive to please Jesus with our lives.
• When you are facing tough times, what are you focusing on? When you are in the midst of prosperity, what are you focusing on? When you are confronted with a choice between two things that claim to be truth, what are you focusing on?
• Today I want to share six areas for us to focus on as we live our lives.
• Losing focus in these areas can make life more difficult, like a baseball player trying to hit a ball he is not focused on.
SERMON
I. FOCUS ON JOY (16)
• READ VERSE 16
• The church was facing a lot of persecution. Just living life was very hard. It would have been easy to be depressed about life in general. It would have been easy to think that God had abandoned them because of what they were facing.
• Paul encourages us to rejoice ALWAYS.
• The verb tense of the word indicates a continuous action.
• The consequence of having received God’s salvation should be an attitude of joy.
• READ 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
• Joy is not dictated by circumstances. Joy does not come from outward conditions. Joy is something that comes from inside of us because of our spiritual riches in Christ. Joy comes from the assurance of what we have in Christ!
• When things get tough, we need to focus on the joy we have in Christ!
• 1 PETER 4:13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.
II. FOCUS ON PRAYER (17)
• READ VERSE 17
• Joyful believers will also be prayerful believers. Those who live their Christian lives in joyful dependency on God will continually recognize their own insufficiency and therefore constantly be in an attitude of prayer. (MacArthur Commentary)
• When we are struggling and facing difficult situations, what do you do? What is the first thing you think to do? I hope it is to pray.
• Prayer is often the means by which obstacles are removed which stand in the way of our joy.
• To pray without ceasing means our souls are to be constantly elevated to God. God means for prayer to be a constant in the life of the Christian.
• ROM 12:12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,
• If we have a confident dependence on God, we will want to be in constant communication with Him.
• (DIAL UP VERSES DSL INTERNET ILLUSTRATION) Dial up is only on when you dial, DSL is on all them time and even allows you to use the phone for other things.
III. FOCUS ON THANKSGIVING (18)
• READ VERSE 18
• How many of us are thankful when bad things happen in life? That is almost a crazy thought isn’t it?
• Constant joy with constant prayer will develop an attitude of constant thanksgiving.
• PHILIPPIANS 4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
• We are told that in everything we are to give thanks! NO EXCEPTIONS.
• Sometimes we have to look and pray really hard to find the reason for being thankful, but we are called to be thankful.
• If we focused on being thankful, it will help keep us from feeling sorry for ourselves when things are tough.
• ROMANS 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
• This passage should be cause of thanksgiving. Can you think of times where a situation seemed bad, but when you look back it was a blessing? (SALARIED JOB LOSS)
• Many people in our society spent too much time complaining about what they do not have instead of being thankful for what they have been blessed with!
• When the early church met, one of its main purposes was to give thanks to God.
• COLOSSIANS 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;
• Jesus is coming back; will He find you with an attitude of thanksgiving?
IV. FOCUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT (19)
• READ VERSE 19
• The verse literally reads, “do not continue to quench the Spirit”
• Something was happening in the church that was causing the spirit to be quenched.
• To quench means “to extinguish a fire”.
• Paul is comparing the Holy Spirit to a fire that can be put out.
• When we live our lives as we await the return of Jesus, we must focus on the Holy Spirit so that we do not quench the Spirit’s work in our lives.
• We can quench the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives by immorality, hardness of heart, carelessness, or living a life contrary to that which God wants for us.
• I know people who are being deliberately disobedient to God and then they wonder why they do not “feel” close to God.
• In the context of verses 19-22 Paul is dealing with some of the super natural manifestations of the Holy Spirit that were a part of the foundation of the church.
• In 1 Corinthians 13:10 Paul writes, ‘but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.”
• Without doing a whole sermon on the Holy Spirit, there were some manifestations of the Spirit that were a part of getting the church started before the Word of God was completed in around 96 A.D.
• In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul explains that when the “perfect” or “complete” comes, the imperfect gifts will be done away with and faith, hope, and love will remain.
• The Spirit is given to us to help convict us of sin in (John 16:8), to help un in the renewing process (Titus 3:5), to help free us from the bondage of sin (Romans 8:3-9), to be a mark or seal to show we belong to God (2 Cor 1:22), to gift us for God’s work (1 Cor 12), and to live within us (Romans 8:9) among other things.
• When we refuse to listen to the Spirit’s prompting in our lives, we can quench the spirit. When I refuse to live up to the knowledge I have about God, my heart will become hardened and the Spirit will not be able to work within me.
• We need to focus on the Spirit’s leading in our lives. There have been times I did not want to follow the lead because I was not sure I wanted to travel where the Spirit was leading, it is a miserable feeling.
V. FOCUS ON GOD’S WORD (20)
• READ VERSE 20
• Prophecy was an important part of the early church until God’s word was completed. The prophets of the early church played in important role in delivering God’s will to man.
• Today, the closest thing we have to the prophets is the evangelist or preacher.
• The word for prophetic utterance can refer either to spoken words or written words. The verb form means “to speak or proclaim publicly”; thus the gift of prophecy is the Spirit-endowed skill of publicly proclaiming God’s Word (cf. Rom. 12:6). New Testament prophets sometimes delivered a brand-new revelation directly from God (Luke 2:29–32; cf. v. 38; Acts 15:23–29). At other times they merely reiterated a divine proclamation that was already recorded (cf. Luke 3:5–6; Acts 2:17–21, 25–28, 34–35; 4:25–26; 7:2–53).
• Since the word of God is complete, there is no need for “prophets” per se because there are no new revelations to give. Everything that is uttered now is something God has to be in line with what God has already revealed.
• ROMANS 12:6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; Verse 6 should read “according to the proportion of THE faith. The prophecy should line up with the body of knowledge that makes “THE faith.”
• To despise means to “set against”. We are not to set ourselves against the word of God. We are to work hard to see this does not happen. Too many people write off some or all the word because they do not like what it says or it does not line up with what THEY believe.
• We are supposed to preach the truth with conviction; we are supposed to stand on the truth without apology!
• Timothy the young evangelist was encouraged by Paul in 2 Timothy 4:2 with the following: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
VI. FOCUS ON BEING DISCERNING (21-22)
• READ VERSES 21-22
• We are called to examine the truth to make sure it is truth. To be able to do this, we must know what the truth is. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons prey on Christians who do not know the word of God, so when they come peddling their false message, the Christian does not know how to discern if what they are saying is truth or not.
• To examine means to “prove something is genuine”
• Just because someone says it, does not make it true. It is only true as it lines up with God’s word. I do not care if 9 of 10 scholars say something is true, if it does not line up with the word, it is not true.
• The way we tell truth from falsehood is by immersing ourselves in God’s word. I have read they train bank tellers how to discern whether money is counterfeit by having them study real money. They do not train them by showing them all the fake money out there.
• If you want to be discerning, learn the word of God, then false doctrine will stick out like a sore thumb.
• We are told to hold fast to what is good or true and stay away for what is not true.
• To hold fast means to embrace wholeheartedly. I believe too many people are embarrassed at times with the truth of the Word and will not preach it with conviction.
• We are to completely avoid evil (false) teaching and behavior.
• 1TI 6:11 But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.
• PHI 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
• 1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us to flee from immorality!
CONCLUSION
• If you are struggling with some area of your life right now, maybe it is time to get your eyes focused in the right place.
• This ending to the letter recaps most of what Paul has been trying to impart to us.
• We must be ready at all times for the return of Jesus. IF we belong to Jesus, we are to live like it, we are to live in such a way it inspires other to want the peace and joy we have.
• If you find yourself struggling, take the focus off yourself and put it on Jesus where it needs to be!
