AN INCREASED LIFE

 

June 3 – 2012 -  How to increase your life!

 

Intro:  This is the second of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.  Paul is giving instructions on how to increase your life.  Paul’s theme in this book is thanksgiving, faith and perseverance. 

 

Background:  Paul wrote this book about a year after he wrote the first book. 

 

1. This book emphasizes that correct information concerning the coming pf the Lord is paramount.  Wrong information can lead to fear, idleness, moral failure or speculation.
2. Paul’s view of the immanent coming of the Lord stirred him to encourage the Thessalonians to live in an orderly manner and be beyond reproach.  Talk about Daniel.
3. Paul also warns them to beware of the evil one or ones.  Know how the devil operates.  His MO is accusation, temptation and deception.  His goal is to rob, destroy and kill you. 

 

1. Know how the world operates.  It attacks through materialism, pleasure and pride.  Society is anti Christian and will do anything to destroy your faith.
2. Beware of the flesh which is 90% of our problem.  Sin still has a sway in our hearts.  It is a natural force that has to be reckoned dead.  It gathers it information and strength through the five senses.  The eye, ear, nose, touch and taste gates or avenue. 
3. Also beware of rational thought which says what I cannot perceive it through the five senses cannot be real.   
4. There is also attack through the good works syndrome which many subscribe too.  I can live as well as I can, God grades on the curve.  Sin is put into categories and God is portrayed as a loving non judgmental God.  Working salvation is the goal and it leads to death.

 

Vs 3

 

1. Paul is thanking the Lord for what was happening in this church.  H is grateful for their ability to stand strong in persecution.  They are aware of the imminent and triumphant coming of the Lord. 
2. Paul says I am thankful for your faith that is growing more and more.  They are allowing the word to sink deep into their hearts.  They are becoming stronger in prayer.  The house of God is a priority and evangelism is an becoming an outgrowth of their relationship with God. 
3. The love that they have for God and each other is increasing.  Trials, problems and struggles are designed to make us stronger in character and more compassionate for others.  The secret of increasing in love for each other is three fold:

 

1. Love the Lord with all your heart.  This vertical relationship allows the communicated love of God to flow through us back and forth from the Father to us and us back to Him.
2. This creates a horizontal reality of loving our neighbor as we learn to love ourselves.  The first place that you will want to show this reality of love is in the local church.  Here is well known fact.  When a person opts out of going to church the first thing that will suffer is their spiritual life.  Another extreme can also happen.  They will view the church as corrupt, useless or not of value in their lives, as an enemy and ineffective.  This creates a condition of spiritual superiority, isolation and insulation.  They cut themselves off from the very people that can help and heal them.
3. Realizing that you are God’s instrument of love.  You are his healing hand and those around you need your as much as you need them. 

 

4. Spiritual growth among believers should be a top priority.  Peter says we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

 

Vs 4

 

1. Paul says that he boasts among all the churches about the Thessalonians perseverance and steadfastness.  Persecution, struggles and severe trials make you aware that this faith is not for the weak or faint hearted.  It is for those who have nerves of steal.  It for those who have back bone.  For those who never give up.  For the tough and strong minded.    
2. The Thessalonians knew that there is gold in hard times when we view them as times of greatest growth.  The Thessalonians had to trust God or it was over for them.  This is the testimony of hundreds of millions around the world.
3. Jesus had suffered and suffering is part of the Christian life.  This is not popular among the prosperity preachers but it is reality for all of us sometime in our Christian experience.  Paul calls the Thessalonians of what a church should be and look like.
4. We will be judged on the things we learn during the hard times.  Faith, love, motives, obedience, faithfulness, servant hood, care for others, patience and righteous living.
5. He commends them on their faith and trust in God.  The foundation of faith is love, which creates hope and produces a trust in God that is unshakeable. 
6. Persecution, suffering and hard times create strong faith and trust.  It can also cause people to pull away, it just depends on the deepness of our conversion. 
7. This letter was written to comfort the Thessalonians during the trials they were enduring at the time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion 

 

1.      2 Thesslonians is a book that confronts false teaching and teachers.  Paul says do

       not let them persuade you to do anything contrary to God and His word. 

2. Peter wrote in 1 Pet 4:12-13, Dear friends do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as thought it something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.
3. Christians are not to be insulated or isolated from each other or from those in the world but to be a help.  As we close this morning talk about the man who was living in Toronto during the war who did the orchestra and then do communion.