2 Thessalonians 1

Well, as I said, we're starting 2 Thessalonians.

We wrapped up 1 Thessalonians last week.

And the the second letter that Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica is has similar feelings to the first letter.

So we know that with the first letter, he was in Thessalonica for not much time.

A few months, was torn away, had to go with them.

And all of a sudden, he he gets these reports back of how the church is doing, and they're doing really well in some things, and they're loving each other well, but there's suffering, there's great suffering for these believers.

And they have all these questions about the end times.

Well, when's Jesus coming back?

Will we be left?

What's gonna happen?

And so Paul writes this letter of 1 Thessalonians to them.

They get the letter.

Now, from best they know, it was at most a year between the two letters, 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

So it could have been a few months, but as best we know, it was uh at least, or excuse me, it was no more than 12 months between the two letters.

And so this second letter has a very similar kind of theme to the Christians.

I mean, they're suffering still, they're trying to figure out when's Jesus coming back and how's that gonna play out.

There's some false teachers.

There's the struggle with sin.

And so what I want you to keep in mind as we kind of walk through this book is that what you hope for is what you live for.

What you hope for is what you live for.

It's what drives you.

The main point today is Christians, we are to suffer well, and God will avenge us, and God will uphold justice.

Christians are to suffer well, God will avenge his people, and he will uphold justice.

Turn with me just right here in the first chapter.

We're gonna read the first 12 verses.

Paul, Sylvanus, and Timothy.

To the Church of the Thessalonians and God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone, excuse me, in the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.

Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God, for your steadfastness in faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering, since indeed God considered it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

To this end we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our Lord God.

Excuse me, according to the grace of our God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

So Paul begins this letter.

Paul writes this letter along with Sylvanus and Timothy, Silas, and he's saying to the church, listen, we're we're thankful for what God's doing in your life.

So there's encouragement in this greeting, and then he brings clarity and warning to them, and then he models for them how to pray.

And so those first few verses, he just is encouraging them and encouraged by them.

Verse 3, we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

Now, what a what a beautiful thing.

You read this, and it sounds almost like um utopian, right?

Everyone's loving one another, they're increasing in their love for one another, they're growing abundantly in their faith.

And you can read these and you just think, man, I just wish I could have been there.

Or I wish I could be at a church like that, where everyone's just growing.

Somehow their problems have have disappeared and they are growing in their faith.

But we know that's not the case.

But what is Paul doing here?

He he's not neglecting their fallen nature or their sin or different issues or the struggles.

He's not neglecting those things.

But what he is saying is, hey, I do see growth.

I do see you guys loving one another well.

I do see these things happening.

And so often in our lives, whether it's with our own selves or with our family or our friends, we can neglect to give thanks to the Lord for them.

And we can neglect to encourage them.

We, you know, and it's most of the time it's it's just kind of it slips our mind.

We're doing life, we're doing things, life's happening, and we just don't say, Man, praise God that the Lord is growing you.

Praise God that that remember the thing you struggled with several years ago?

Man, you've matured.

Not that you don't struggle, but you've overcome that issue, that thing.

Praise God, you're growing in your faith.

So often we forget that just to give thanks to God for people.

I was convicted of this this week.

As I was preparing the sermon, I was just thinking, how I'm always, Lord, thank you for the answer prayer to this situation, or that you did this thing in someone's life, or that this thing happened.

But we we forget to just, Lord, thank you for this person.

Thank you for them.

That they're in my life and that I get to be around them and that they're encouraging me, or that they're challenging me to be more mature in my faith.

Thank you, God, for this person or for these people.

We can just focus sometimes on just the thing that the Lord's doing.

And that's so kind of American of us.

What's the thing that's getting done?

How are we progressing?

Are we are we moving forward?

Instead of, Lord, thank you for the people that are here.

So last week at we at the end of chapter five, it has this little thing about greeting each other with the holy kiss, right?

We talked about that.

And there's this language of greeting and affection from Paul.

They're excited to see one another.

Now, if you guys are wondering how we interpreted that passage, you'll have to go online and listen to the sermon.

But um, you didn't see anyone kissing anyone this morning, so there's a clue for you there.

But there is an excitement to see one another, an encouragement.

We're encouraging one another.

And one of the things that I am so blessed by of this church is that people who are excited to gather together.

You know, we don't just kind of walk in here and sit in our seat and keep to ourselves and sing the songs.

We want to be encouraged by one another.

There's brothers and sisters here who who love me, who want to see my faith grow, who care about me and my family, who pray for me.

There's brothers and sisters who I'm praying for.

I've been praying for specific things this week for them.

And I want to see how they're doing.

This desire to encourage one another, excited about one another, excited to see one another grow in their faith.

We have to encourage one another.

This isn't easy.

See, for most people, encouragement is kind of tied to your emotions.

Now, I'm not, we're not hopping on the all emotions and feelings are bad, don't do anything with your emotions or feelings.

But we can't trust our emotions and our feelings as much as we probably should.

We can't, because they're they're broken.

We can trust truth, we lean on truth, but oftentimes our desire to encourage one another, it's tethered to how we feel.

You know, it's it's rainy and gloomy outside, I'm coming in to the gathering, and I don't feel encouraged, so I don't feel like encouraging others.

Or have had a hard week.

I mean, I had this terrible argument with my spouse, or I've got the situation with my kids, or my job, and I just I don't feel like encouraging.

As a matter of fact, I need encouraged.

And I just want to say to you, brother or sister, when you when you come in with that way, you need encouraged.

You need the body of Christ to encourage you, and that requires you sharing what's going on in your life.

Being honest about your week.

How you doing?

I'm doing fine, I'm doing fine.

Okay, well, it's amazing.

Everyone's fine all the time in our culture.

We're all fine.

But we're not.

I'm not saying you need to, the first person you see, you just need to like unload all of your life's situations on them.

But you can be you can be succinct and you can be honest at the same time.

Hey, it's been you know, it's been a really tough week.

It's been hard.

Well, let me encourage you.

And the same thing is also true.

When you feel just kind of down and beat up, one of the greatest things you can do is go and encourage others.

And I don't mean encourage them from this position of, hey, I got it, I'm everything's good here.

You know, we're all growing and we're happy.

Let me encourage you.

But hey, it's been a tough week for me, and but I just want to tell you, I'm I'm so grateful for what the Lord's doing in your life.

I'm so excited that you're that you're here.

And you know, you should mean these things, be genuine in these things.

But when you feel like, man, I don't, I'm not encouraged, I don't want to be encouraged, or I don't want to encourage others, you know what you need to do?

You need to go and encourage others from a genuine heart.

Ask the Lord, pray, Lord, help me to be encouraged by what you've done.

That I'm not dead in my sin.

I'm not on the road to destruction where you are not at, where your glory does not dwell.

We're to be encouraging one another.

We then see that that Paul gives some encouragement and some or some clarification and a warning in verses four through ten.

Right?

So he's kind of listening this is some clarification and there's some hope in here about what's to come.

Verse, and let's read, sorry, verse 4.

For we ourselves boast about you and the church of God, but for your steadfastness and faith and all your persecutions and suffering and inflictions that you are enduring.

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering, since indeed God considered it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted, as well as to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

So he gives this clarification and warning, and he kind of has these two things going on.

He addresses the Christians and saying, Listen, God's judgment will be brought against those who persecute God's people.

God's judgment will be brought against those who persecute God's people.

Verse 6, verse 8, and verse 9 all point to this.

God considered it just to pay with affliction those who afflict you.

Verse 7.

He will grant relief to you who are afflicted.

And the mighty angels, flaming fire, verse 8, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Verse 9, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and away from the glory of his might.

So that the focus for us, as Paul's working through this passage, talking about the return of Christ and the flaming fires, and there's angels and there's vengeance and eternal damnation.

The focus for us is not the when.

It's not the when do these things happen.

We know the they will, but rather the what of his return.

What's going to happen and why does it matter?

What comes along with the return of Christ?

Justice will come.

Justice will come when Christ returns.

Part of that is the vengeance that he will bring on those who have persecuted his people and those who are against him.

Peace will come.

Truth will reign.

These are the what of when Christ returns.

And we want to get kind of caught up on the on the wind.

Is it today?

Is it going to be tomorrow?

Can this administration really still remain and the Lord not bring down justice on it?

When's the Lord gonna return?

And we can waste away the days and the energy and the affections we have for the Lord by worrying about the wind.

It doesn't, it's gonna come.

But the Lord told us to be obedient to him.

The standard of living, the way that we go about our day, does not change whether the Lord comes back tomorrow or comes back in a thousand years.

And nobody knows.

Everyone's out there saying it's gonna be soon.

They don't know.

Okay?

Just tell you right now, they do not know.

Only the Lord knows.

And when he comes, he will come.

And he's told his church to be prepared, to be prepared.

Paul wrote it in his letters 2,000 years ago to the churches.

Be prepared.

Christ will come.

And for 2,000 years, we are to be prepared.

We need to prepare our hearts to continue to prepare.

This is the mission of the church.

But when he returns, when that day comes, Christ will reign.

Justice will be brought, will be brought.

This language of angels and flaming fire and destruction.

There's two qualifications here.

As Paul's laying out kind of what's going to happen.

Two qualifications.

One is it's for those who do not know God and those who do not obey God.

Those who do not know him, and then those who do not obey him.

And at first you think those are the same thing.

In many cases, they they kind of are.

But there are a lot of people, especially in our part of the world, who know about God, but they do not obey God.

And even in that, there's a spectrum.

There are those who say, Yeah, I believe there's a God, but I don't really care.

And there's our there are believers, or I should say, people who who think they're believers in the church who are saying, Yeah, I believe in God.

I think, sure, I believe in the Bible or most of the Bible.

I'm there with Jesus, you know, he's God.

He's my Savior.

But they do not obey God.

They do not desire to follow Him, to call Him Lord, to repent of their sin and follow after Him.

These things are supreme.

We must figure these things out.

Do I know God and do I obey God?

Romans 10, 9 says, Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Confess with your mouth, believe in your heart.

Candace and I had, we had some neighbors over for dinner the other day, and we were just talking about this passage.

They're believers, and we were talking about how when you say you believe something, you live it out.

It's evident.

I believe this thing to be true.

I'm living it out.

It's ironic.

I used the analogy with the couple.

I said, you know, if your house is burning, then you're gonna you're gonna, if you believe that, you're you're you're gonna act like your house is burning, right?

So if the armory's on fire, the fire department's gonna act like it's on fire.

It's not though, okay?

Everyone needs to know that.

It's not.

But there is a reality that if you confess with your mouth, that's you have to make the confession.

You have to make the confession.

And you have to believe in your heart.

And we have to examine our lives.

What you do with your time, your money, how you treat people, what's going on in your head where where no one else can see your thoughts.

None of us are perfect.

And we will not be perfect until Christ returns, or we're with Christ in heaven.

But we know we're called to be like him and to follow him.

And so we must make this confession and must live it out.

Strive to live it out.

Because there is no other way.

Acts 4 12 says, and there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

There's no other hope.

And Paul's just clarifying.

Listen, church, you are suffering, you're going through hard things, and I want you to know that one, Christ will return, and he will set all things right.

It might not be in your lifetime, we know it wasn't in their lifetime.

It might not probably won't be in our lifetime.

But Christ will return.

He will return and set all things right.

And when that happens, there is no other hope, there is no other chance.

For Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to me except through the Father.

We must have a right confession.

We must live as if we're striving to walk out that confession.

What must we believe?

Well, we must believe in God's word.

Right?

We must believe this is God's word for us.

And in God's word, we believe that God is holy.

God created all things.

He's holy and perfect.

We must believe that Jesus is God, that Jesus entered the world, taking on humanity, not leaving his deity, taking on human flesh and blood.

We believe that Jesus did this in order to save his people who were dead in their sin.

Not who were kind of floundering or were lost or just needed some direction.

They were dead in their sin without hope.

They deserved hell for their sins against a holy and perfect God.

And mankind could not repay this.

They could not pay the debt for their sin.

Jesus died on the cross for the sins of his people, was buried three days later, after he died, is buried, and then rose from the grave, defeating death for eternity for his people.

Christ has done this, and we are to put our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Not something else, not anyone else.

So as believers, we're to make a right profession, right confession of faith.

And strive to follow Jesus with our lives.

Again, we're failures.

So this is the this is the tension for us.

Right?

And if you didn't know that, uh newsflash, you sinned, you've fallen short of God's standards, and you need a savior.

But the good thing is Christ is that savior.

Hebrews 2 says he's our great high priest.

We come to him in the midst of our failures, in the midst of our sin and our struggles, we come to him because he has redeemed us.

We confess our need again for him.

We confess again our we repent of our sin and we turn and we strive to follow him.

So we know that God will do this for his people.

Right?

He'll bring judgments against those who have persecuted his people.

But his people, right confession, walking out, obeying the commands of Christ.

And then the second thing we see in this passage is that God will vindicate God's people.

He will vindicate his people.

Verses 5, 7, and 10.

Therefore, we ourselves boast about you, the churches of God, for your steadfastness and faith, the persecution, the afflictions you are enduring.

There's no boasting if the people will eventually die off.

And it means nothing.

Says verse 5.

This is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering.

They're not suffering because they have a particular set of morals.

They're not suffering because they're ascetic and they just want to suffer for suffering's sake.

They're suffering because they belong to the kingdom.

There is no other thing worth suffering for, like suffering for the kingdom.

We are in a broken world and we will suffer.

We'll suffer in our relationships, we'll suffer physically, we'll suffer in war, but the ultimate suffering is suffering for an eternal kingdom.

The kingdom of God.

God vindicates his people.

They belong to the kingdom.

The kingdoms of the world, they oppress.

They push, they bring on affliction, they bring on suffering.

We endure it because we don't belong to these kingdoms.

We belong to the kingdom of God.

Verse 10, and when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.

When that day comes, those who have believed the testimony will see.

They will be the ones who will be glorifying God.

They will be the ones, we will be the ones who marvel at him.

It won't be the ones who are causing the affliction or the suffering or oppressing others.

It will be those who belong to the kingdom, those who God has vindicated.

For so long, you know, we we go through our lives and we're trying to be faithful to the Lord in our places of work, with our family, people around us.

People make comments, they say things, they kind of dig at you.

Why don't you believe that stuff?

Why are you so legalistic?

Come on, don't you want to live a little?

Why do you got to be this way?

And it just kind of wears on you.

And if you're like me, there's probably been moments in your life, if you've been a Christian for a while, where you're just like, come on, Lord, can you like just show them?

Not, and this is even like super fleshly.

Like you're not asking the Lord to like destroy them.

You're just saying, Lord, like, can you show them that you're like I'm living for something that's real?

Um when I'm praying, I'm not talking to the air, I'm talking to you, God.

And the Lord will come, and He will reveal.

And all those who just seem crazy because they're following God, the God of the Bible, they believed God's word, it will be vindicated.

Everyone else will be like, yeah, I guess they were right, weren't they?

There is a God, and He's here.

We'll be vindicated.

The reason that we can endure suffering is because we know that Jesus will return.

He will return.

The suffering will come to an end.

When the Lord comes, he will bring justice.

The world is crying out for justice.

We all want justice.

But we want a unique kind of justice.

And what I mean by that is in our flesh, we want things to be made right.

But if God were to come without Jesus Christ, without the good news of Christ dying for our sin, if God were to be just, everyone's condemned to hell for their sin, for eternal destruction.

And the only reason that some will not spend eternity in hell is because God has been merciful and merciful, atoning for their sin.

So when we advocate for justice as believers, we know this isn't a justice, a justice that the court system can bring about, or politicians, or just better living, good, clean living isn't going to bring about the justice we need and long for.

Only Christ can do that.

And Christ brings mercy.

And so as believers, we are to be merciful.

Even in the midst of suffering, in the midst of in the midst of affliction, in the midst of comments from people.

It's easy when the easier when those comments are from co-workers, or but you know, when it's when it's family or a spouse or a child or a parent.

It's so hard to endure that and keep the right perspective that God's merciful.

But we need to remember that God has been merciful to us, so we are to be merciful to others.

When God comes and vindicates his people, he will bring satisfaction.

Our hearts will be satisfied.

There will no longer be the tension of I want people to see, and I just wish their eyes could be opened.

Or I just feel like I'm struggling with my sin.

I'm tired of struggling with my sin and this back and forth.

I'm tired of being defeated.

I'm tired of not feeling like I want to go to church on Sunday.

I'm tired of feeling like I don't want to do these things.

Our hearts will be satisfied when the Lord returns.

So Paul's writing saying, listen, brothers and sisters, you're doing all these things because you have believed our testimony.

The Lord will save you, and encouragement and hope is coming for you.

But there is warning.

The warning is clarified, there is warning for those who reject Christ.

And then Paul closes with this prayer, verse 11 and 12.

And to this end we pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and in him according to the grace of our Lord, of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a great model for us.

Paul just finishes out chapter one with his prayer.

He prays these kind of three things.

That God would make you worthy of his calling.

That God would make you worthy of his calling.

What he doesn't say is, I pray that you could live up to the calling that God has placed on your life.

He doesn't say, I pray that you continue to grow and do better and be a good Christian.

He doesn't say, I pray that you become someone who's in church three times a week and you read your Bible every day and you read through the Bible in a year and you disciple your kids and that you give to missions.

What he says is that God would make you worthy of his calling.

It all hinges on God.

What a blessing.

So often we we'll read this text, we'll read like their suffering and their endurance and all these things, and we'll be like, oh wow, that's amazing.

Okay, I need to be like that.

I should be like that.

And then we start kind of beating ourselves up because we're not.

And Paul just says, like, listen, it's God who works in you.

It is the Lord who's working in you, that God would make you worthy of his calling.

Not worthy of people's expectations for you, not worthy of what people think you should be, but worthy of what he has called you to be, his child, that God would work in you.

So as we're praying for one another, as we're praying to being to encourage one another.

I hope you're praying for the body of Christ as you go through your week.

This is a model how to pray.

Pray for your spouse, pray for your children, that God would do the work, because he's the only one that can.

That God would do the work to make them worthy of his calling.

I just think again of Philippians 1.6, it is He who began a good work and you will bring it to completion.

God begins the good work, God brings it to completion.

This doesn't mean we just sit back and relax and do nothing.

He's called us to walk with him, but we rely on him.

The second thing he prays is that God may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.

So again, that God, that God would do this work, that may fulfill every resolve for good in every work of faith by his power.

So everything the church is trying to do for good, their hearts are pure, they're trying to serve the Lord, they're trying to work unto the Lord's glory for the good of the kingdom, for God's glory.

The Lord would bless their work and bless their efforts.

And they're the as they do, as they're trying to live by faith.

They're trying to live day-to-day by faith because they're a persecuted people.

That God would give them the strength.

Every work of faith, that God, by his power, they would do those things.

That they would not kind of get a big head and begin to think, well, you know, I think we're pretty good at this thing.

We have some talent here.

We got, you know, we kind of we've kind of figured some things out.

But rather, but that they would be dependent on God's power.

Why?

So that the name of the Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and in him.

Again.

He doesn't say so that you guys can like start this really cool thing, and then it's gonna be really popular, and then you guys can kind of make a big name for yourselves, and you can do all these things.

No, he says, so that God be glorified in you.

That the Lord would do these things.

So often our eyes just kind of begin to drift away from the Lord, back to ourselves.

And this happens naturally.

So don't beat yourself up about this, but you need to know what you do because you just kind of make it about yourself.

You make everything about yourself.

This is your this is your default sin nature.

This is about me, right?

Uh what do I want to do?

Well, I have a free Sunday afternoon.

What do I want to do with it?

And the kids are in bed, it's finally some chill time.

What do I want?

What do I want?

It's always like, man, what do I want?

And the call of Christ is to die to yourself, to live for Christ, and to live for others.

And so we're not living for our own glory.

We're living for the glory of Christ.

For his glory, for what he has done.

And so that others, when others see us, they don't think, man, that guy's just a that Gerald, they're just great people.

They're wonderful.

I don't know quite how they figured it out, but they they're just they're they're doing it.

They're crushing life.

They're they're awesome.

No.

But rather, the Lord has done something to them.

There's something almost not natural about that.

They're so quick to forgive.

They're always trying to encourage in a genuine, humble way.

They're not making it about themselves.

They're always talking about the goodness of the Lord.

They're always praising God.

They always want to pray with me.

Like they're just always exuding out the things of the Lord for his glory, for our good.

So as believers, people who are not in the same affliction, not facing the same adversity, we are to be thankful and to encourage one another.

We're to build one another up, be intentional about that.

We are to endure hardship well.

Now we're just remind all of us, we're all battling the flesh.

Every one of us daily has to fight our fleshly desires and our sin nature.

So we don't have outside suffering and persecution, but it doesn't mean our life is easy.

We are to cling to Christ, repent of our sin, and follow after Him, cry out to Him daily, and know that He will set all things right.

And we hope in that and be encouraged in that.

Let's pray.

God, I pray that we would have a right confession.

That our confession would honor you and be true and biblical.

And that we would strive to walk in obedience to you, God.

We would strive to walk in obedience to your word.

That we would do this encouraging one another, building one another up in the faith.

Be praying for one another.

Pray, Lord, for those who may be here who do not know you as their Lord and their Savior.

Reveal their need for a Savior.

Give us strength, God, and we pray for the days ahead.

God may we honor and glorify you above all things.

We praise you, Lord Jesus.

Amen.