Thank God for You!

We are going to take a short journey through the Book of 2 Thessalonians as we worship together this summer. The theme of 2 Thessalonians revolves around two key issues.

Has the Day of the Lord Already Come?

Do We Need to Work if Jesus is Coming Back?

Paul answers both of these questions and gives some interesting insight into the things that must take place. This morning we will start by looking at Paul’s opening benediction to the church and how grateful he was for the Thessalonians.

2 Thessalonians 1:1–4 ESV

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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. 4 Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

Pray.

The letter of 2 Thessalonians was most likely written shortly after Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians. He wrote 1 Thessalonians to encourage the persecuted church that God was going to come for them soon and He would give them strength.

Paul was most likely serving in Athens when word got back to him about a few problems that were still going on in Thessalonica since he wrote his first letter.

The church had some problems with people in the church that were deliberately misleading its members about the Day of the Lord. Now remember, the Day of the Lord is the day that Jesus will return and establish His kingdom on earth and judge the nations.

Some of these false teachers were so underhanded in their deception of the church that they even tried to write letters under the name of Paul and pass them off as if they were from him. Paul deals with this in chapter 2.

There were also some lazy people that wouldn’t work and were taking advantage of the generosity of those who would. Does that sound familiar to you in today’s society?

Paul addresses their laziness rather firmly and tells them that if they don’t work, they don’t eat and even goes so far as to say that the church should have nothing to do with these people until they repent.

It’s a serious thing to be on mission for God and we can be sure that behind these attacks on the church there was the devil himself. He came to try to disrupt the church and divert her from her mission of reaching people with the gospel.

You see, if we share the gospel, God will do the saving. The devil knows that so what he does is tries to get us to not share at all. We need to get distracted with programs and building projects and our own families and a busy schedule. If he can get us to not be focused on the mission we are called to accomplish, he can keep us from sharing the gospel and keep people from getting saved.

That’s one of the reasons that we need each other!

When word got back to Paul about how the church was doing and what the problems were, Paul wrote another letter to encourage them and set things straight. He couldn’t leave Athens to be there in person, so instead he did the next best thing. We get to benefit by having the letter he wrote included in our Bibles. As a result, we are encouraged by what Paul said as well.

1. A Blessing (vv.1-2)

Paul started his letter by blessing the church. This was the common form of a letter in the ancient world. There would be a greeting, the meat of the letter, and then a closing blessing. You might call this a praise sandwich. it’s actually quite helpful for us today if we have a problem we need to discuss with someone. Don’t just go in with the criticism you have.

Paul wasn’t just buttering them up to set them up for his correction though. He genuinely was thankful for them.

Paul extends the grace and peace of God to them. This church was one that had been put through the ringer! They had suffered from the very beginning for believing the gospel.

People will go after a church that is trying to live for Jesus. When you are going through tough times, you need the grace of God. Grace is defined as unmerited favor. This church needed a little reprieve from the suffering that they were getting.

Paul is going to remind them later on in the chapter that the reprieve they need will ultimately come when Jesus gets here, so don’t think that we will necessarily find an escape hatch in this life from our problems.

Illustration:

Have you ever felt like you need a little island time with nobody on the island but you? Maybe you aren’t a beach person, so your “island” may be a mountain or somewhere else.

Life is hard and can be tough. It’s good to find ways to get away for a brief spell from what you’re going through to regroup and recharge.

Application:

What are some ways that you can get that break in your life and experience the grace and peace of God?

Now, Paul expressing the source of that grace and peace. It is ultimately from God the Father through Jesus Christ. We have peace with God through Jesus, but we also have peace in this world through Jesus.

Jesus said,

John 14:27 ESV

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The peace that we are often looking for is the peace that the world looks for. We want our problems to stop. We want to be removed from conflict, and yet God may never do either of these things in your life. He will, however, carry you through and give you an internal peace and His grace to help you.

One of the ways that God does this is through the local church. When things are tough, we can count on each other to help us carry the load.

What about you? How can you help someone carry their load today?

2. A Growing Faith (v.3)

The next thing that Paul says is that we should give thanks to God for one another. There was a reason Paul wanted to thank God for the Thessalonians. They were growing in their faith and in their love for one another was increasing.

These two things should characterize every faithful church and believer. We should be growing in our faith, and we should be growing in love for one another.

How do we grow in our faith? Well, friends, theres only one way that happens. We have to exercise it and you know what that means. We have to have our faith tested. That means there will likely be trials and things that happen in our lives where we have to use that faith in God.

James said this,

James 1:2–4 ESV

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

When you and I are going through a tough time in our life, we need to look at that time as a way of strengthening our walk with Jesus and our faith.

Paul said that the faith of the Thessalonians was growing abundantly! Is it possible that the greater testing our faith endures, the more abundantly our faith grows?

Faith is one of those things that grows out of the struggle.

Illustration:

I often like to talk about gardening things in my sermons, and I recently learned something about growing plant seedlings. Have you ever had some seed that you started and you put the tray near a window and kept it watered. You noticed the plants start to sprout and break the soil, but then you noticed that the plants were starting to get all long and leggy. They may have looked like this.

What happens is the plant starts searching for light and grows tall and spindly. But did you know that even if you have good light, the plants can still be very week. Something you can do to help get a strong plant stem is to have the plant sit in the shade and get a breeze or simulate that breeze from the beginning with a fan.

You see the breeze is a resistance and causes the stem to have to harden up, which later on makes for a more healthy plant that can hold itself up.

Application:

This may not seem all that important to you, but sometimes we have to experience some resistance in our lives to get a stronger core. We grow in our faith when we experience this resistance.

Our love for one another should also be growing. This is the natural byproduct of going through struggles together with other believers. When we’ve been in the trenches together, we understand one another better and we see life from a similar perspective.

Soldiers who have fought on the battlefield experience a camaraderie with other battle tested soldiers, because they have been in the same experiences. Those of us who are civilians and have never been in the army cannot understand what a war veteran, especially who has experienced combat first hand, has gone through.

The same could be said for spiritual war. There are some battle-tested Christians out there that are able to help you when you struggle. The experience of fighting our battles together causes us to grow in love for one another.

3. A Boast in the Lord (v.4)

The last thing Paul does is act like a father with his children. He boasts about them to the churches that he is planting and serving. He tells their story of faith and struggle and perseverance.

We all have a story. We all have a testimony of what God has done in our lives. We should tell it. We should praise God for it. We should celebrate what God has done in each of our lives together.

That’s one of the reasons for church. We come together to praise God for what He’s done.

You know, we love to complain. We love to criticize. I think we think it will make us feel better if we do, but it rarely ever does. It never lifts our spirits for very long. We need to try a different approach. Let’s encourage each other and boast about one another to others.

“Hey! Did you hear what my friend John did the other day? He started talking to this complete stranger and invited them to church!”

“Did you hear about what Emily did? She’s been going through a tough time lately, but she got up and came to church anyways!”

Now if you are John or Emily this morning, you are probably feeling pretty good about yourself aren’t you? It was hard figuring out which names I should use!

But that’s the whole point. We feel good when someone brags on us, and we can make someone feel great when we boast about them to other people and to the Lord. I’m not talking about an unhealthy boasting. We are all imperfect. I’m not talking about pride.

I’m talking about being thankful to God for one another and pointing out our accomplishments so that we can have some small wins in our lives.