6.11.25

Introduction

2 Thessalonians 1 “Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring. All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you. With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Luke 19:1–10 “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.””

Church in Thessalonica facing persecution and trials

Suffering from their own people

1 Thessalonians 2:14–16 “For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.”

If Paul had simply been adding another one to this list, nobody would have minded very much. But he was clearly not doing that: he was inviting his hearers to turn from all other loyalties and give full allegiance to Jesus, and to the God who has been made known in and through him. When they did, provoking a strong reaction, this was indeed a sign that the message was effective. Grace from the one true God had been at work; those who believed became a sign of it; and gratitude was the appropriate reaction, however paradoxical that might seem in the face of suffering and persecution. Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 141.

Faith and love is growing in the midst of all of this

Clear about salvation

Punishing those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

Those who do know God … who believed Paul’s testimony … will see him glorified in his holy people

Story of Zacchaeus

Man stealing from others to grow rich has a change of heart - wants to see Jesus

Encounters Jesus - Jesus sees him and comes to his house - honours him - and Zacchaeus is moved to repentance

God does not want anyone to not know him - he wants everyone in the family - but he doesn’t force anyone

Amazing Grace (my chains are gone)

Thank you for saving me