A Growing Church

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  A Growing Church

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  I shared with you a few months ago when I was trying to figure out what to preach after we finished 1 Thessalonians...maybe it was like April or something, or it was coming, and a mentor of mine kind of gave me the look of like, why wouldn't you just go into 2 Thess? And at the time, you know, it seemed right. But then as the months would go on over the summer, you as a preacher, you kind of get into everything. You just, um, reading different books and you're reading your own Bible and everything seems like the next thing you want to preach. And one thing that was particularly on my heart that I was concerned about in light of, you know, certain moments in the time you're preaching in cultural moments is, you know, the political season we're in. And so the thought had crossed my mind of doing a mini-series on politics, thinking Biblically about it. And that's kind of what we call any series that we take topically. And really it did come down to a photo finish to call it that, of which I would do next and my heartbeat behind wanting to talk about politics...because we all can't get enough of it is, you know, with the election coming, just wanting to think rightly about it. But at the same time, it doesn't just terminate on thinking rightly about it. You can read a lot on your own. It's having the right heart disposition towards it. It's where is our faith and where is our hope? So that no matter what the outcome is, we love the Lord and our hope is in him, and our home is in heaven, and our faith will remain strong. And that's when it occurred to me in reading through 2 Thessalonians. Well, Adam, if that's what your aim is, the aim of our instruction is, is for our hearts to be changed, then, then preach 2 Thessalonians, because that's actually the aim of Paul. When he's writing this letter, he's aiming at this growing church, growing in faith, growing in love, and having an unchanging hope. And it's not to say we might not revisit that topic sometime coming down the road in the fall, but in the meantime, the heart work that can be done for us to be prepared for anything where it doesn't just have to be something happening in society that you feel is opportune time to speak towards. But whatever might be happening in your life, I don't know if there's ever a time in my Christian life that growing in faith and deepening in love, and having my hope in Christ remain as strong and secure as ever, is not a good season for. So we turn to 2 Thessalonians this morning. And perhaps the only question then that remains is, is it going to be as good as the first? Uh, because, you know, in life, maybe just in movies, I guess, the sequel tends to let us down a little bit. In the godly gathering of elders this morning when we pray before the 9 a.m. service, it came up about a sequel that an elder had just watched of a movie.  And I said, there's my introduction. I've been figuring, what should I talk about to kick off this series? And there it was, providentially, a discussion on has there ever been a sequel that's better than the original? Only one Air Bud 2, Golden Retriever. Everything else just went downhill. And maybe you debate that in your life group this week as an icebreaker or on the ride home. But what is wonderful about the Word of God is we know there is no letdown. That whatever truths and power to work in our lives, that we saw in 1st Thessalonians last spring when we started in January and it took us through the spring, we pick up here. And the great part is we'll have some familiarity with it. If you are new here and you weren't part of us going verse by verse through 1st Thessalonians for one, if you're new here, that's how we typically preach here...is we pick a book of the Bible, and then we preach it verse by verse and try to give you yourself the sense to see what is right in front of you, that you can follow right along in your Bible with us, uh, not just opening it and then closing it and moving on, but learning for yourself and even learning as we go, verse by verse, how to study your Bible. So we talked last week about being a a word-centered church. Well, really in the preaching is where you see the emphasis on that, and those that weren't here for 1 Thessalonians, the letter that comes right in your Bible before this, if you want to go back last January, we started it. There are 18 sermons. You know, I keep notching on the wall like a jailbird, uh, every time I preach through something. And so we got 18 sermons in. You can listen to them two times speed. Just cut the time in half. And then when you come in here on normal Sundays, you'll think I'm super slow because some of you Southerners are like, you talk too fast and trying to work on it. Okay, it's been a ten year project, but that's where we're going to be. And the the gnawing question that Paul is answering for this letter that hasn't really moved too far away from the first letter, is this...how then, should we live in light of the return of Jesus Christ? That's a question for any age as a follower of Jesus. How then should we live in light of Christ's return? Because from the time he was leaving, he was telling his followers, be ready. Be on the alert. Be watchful. And that's a two part question. If you just get right to the how then should we live part but leave out...in light of the return of Jesus. Uh, you might be moving to action without having the right motivation for that action. And that's really what 2 Thessalonians is covering that some of the believers here in Thessalonica, months after Paul wrote the first letter, were still living in a way based on false teaching that they were getting that he alludes to there in chapter two that whether it was a spirit or a message, you know, basically there's still some people saying, hey, you missed the day, Lord, he already came back. It can really throw people in a tailspin for how then they should live. Especially if you believe the return of Jesus already came. At the same time, if we look ahead to chapter three, there was a word for those who say, well, if it's so far, you know, if we're if we're just kind of waiting for his return, what's really the point of trying to improve our lot? And so he has to address that. But first on his mind and first on our minds that relates to where we are today in chapter one. Is that the reason Paul got run out of town and hasn't been able to come back to this wonderful church, is because of persecution. And that affliction, that suffering, though he's not experiencing it while he's currently writing this in Corinth, the people have been. They've still been feeling the pinch. And he cares for them. He wants to comfort them. He wants to write them something encouraging. He wants them to know the truth so then their life can follow. In that he teaches us as believers that simple principle that what you believe will always determine how you behave. What you're currently learning about who God is and who you are always is going to impact your living. If you fall off on either side, if it's just always about learning but never what you're living, then you run the danger of being a hypocrite. Truth without application leads to hypocrisy. In the same way, if you just kind of get moving in a direction and forget the ground on which you stand doctrinally and you're all just about living, but no learning, you run the danger of heresy. And so that's why we see the emphasis both here. Paul's going to get right at teaching them, instructing them before he gets to informing the way they should live, because that's the order we follow. It doesn't leave either out. We don't leave either behind because we know that that is the way God has wired us to grow. And this is a letter to a growing church. We talked about the theme of 1 Thessalonians being a good church, and we defined it as a good church is one that is, grounded in the grace of God and produces gratitude in God's people for spiritual growth around them. That was kind of our thesis statement of 1 Thessalonians. Well, it hasn't changed too much other than there's a little more of an emphasis in 2 Thessalonians on affliction and suffering. And so if you're looking for a big picture to kind of jump into this letter with, it would be this. This is about a growing church. They didn't just start good and tail off, kind of like what Paul had to correct with the Galatians. They were departing from the gospel. This church is holding its ground. So it's a growing church. And we'll hear that right away. But here would be the big picture for this letter as a whole. A growing church is a continued work of God's grace, rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ and bearing the good fruit of faith, love, and hope in the soil of suffering. That's what I want to have in your mind as we get into this letter. What motivates us to pay attention to it, Because we want to be a growing church, right? We just don't want to be a good church, you know, always kind of looking in the rear view, remembering the glory days.  We are a good church. But we want to be a continually growing church. And a growing church is one that reminds itself it is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it is currently presently bearing the good fruits. Those sister virtues, as some scholars call them...faith, hope, and love. But what we see in this letter that I think is pertinent to the times we're in...back to why I wanted to do this...is because it's all happening in the soil of suffering and in the furnace of affliction, where the Christians here in Thessalonica aren't being just automatically accepted into their culture for what they believe and know. They ran Paul, Silas and Timothy off. But yet Paul is hearing a good report from them, and he's encouraged by them. And I think that's going to ground our hearts in hope and love and in faith this semester.

  So follow along with me as I read. We'll just get into the greeting today, set the table with it, and then move out from there in the weeks to come...first four verses.
  "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater. Therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God, for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all persecutions and afflictions which you endure."
  Father, open our eyes this morning to see the wonderful Word. Spirit, illuminate it to our hearts and show us more of Christ, that our faith will be stronger in him. Amen.
  So what are the marks of a growing church? Or if I could say it a different way based on what Paul says in there in verse four. What kind of church would God be proud of? You see that in verse four? He says, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God. Well, if Paul is carried along by the Holy Spirit and is inspired to write...we speak proudly of you among the other churches of God. Then what he's saying is, this is the type of church God would be proud of. And what he's about to say is going to describe to us a growing church that God would be proud of...acts like this, looks like this, behaves like this, and we want to be that kind of church. 
  So let's see what he starts with today. First in verses one and two in the greeting, we see that a growing church is still rooted in the gracious gospel of Jesus Christ. We never move away from it. It's a continued work of God's grace, and we see just in Paul's introduction how he roots these believers and their only hope in the author and perfecter of their faith, and then the one who first loved them before they loved him...Jesus Christ. So look at the introduction. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy. We know them from their second missionary journey. Silvanus was somewhat of a peer of Paul's. We don't know his age, but we know from the book of Acts that he was a functioning elder, and he traveled with Paul. After the end of chapter 15, Paul and Barnabas decided to go different ways. Paul brings Silvanus along, who's also known as Silas and Timothy, which was his protégé, his disciple. They get to Thessalonica. We know this story from Acts 17:1-9, and Paul immediately goes into the Sabbath, Verse two of Acts 17, explaining and giving evidence that Jesus had to suffer and rise again from the dead. And he said, and this was his message, and this is preaching Christ and Him crucified in its glory and simplicity. This Jesus, who I am proclaiming to you is the Christ is the Messiah. And here's the fruit that God brings. Some were persuaded and joined them in a large number of God-fearing Greeks and leading women. So there were converts...Jews, Gentiles. But yet there was also conflict. Verse five, there were Jews who were jealous, and they ran. They formed a mob and ran Paul and Silas and Timothy out of town and said, don't ever come back here. And so Jason formed some kind of plea bargain with the city, that perhaps there was a pledge that Jason would be in trouble if these guys ever came back. And so this persecution leads to good things, as God is also in charge of everything. He's running all things. So even amidst persecution, the gospel goes out and gets to Berea and it gets to Athens, and it gets to Corinth, so we can see God's providence always reigning over persecution. It's not outside of his control. Paul doesn't make it back there, but he does send Timothy back to get a report. Timothy brings a good report. We learn that from 1 Thessalonians 1:3, that Paul had sent Timothy on a mission to find out how they were doing in the faith. And then he finds out, verse six, that Timothy has brought a report...good news of your faith and love, this faith and love and hope theme that goes throughout 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Paul has heard a good report and he's in Corinth now writing the first letter. Time goes on. He maybe hears that there's still some false teaching going on, and some people that, in light of that false teaching, aren't living the right way. So he writes this second letter, but to greet them, he doesn't just get right down to business. He wants to remind them that you never move past the gospel in the introduction to them. He reminds them who they are. A growing church always needs to be reminded of the most important thing, which is this...if you are a Christian, if you are a part of the church, the family of God, you are (circle) IN God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. IN is the most important preposition. Your Christianity hangs on this. Are you in God the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ? If you are, what does that mean? I mean, if you're just looking at our text alone, it's hard to understand that maybe if you're new to Christianity, if you're not a Christian here today, you might not even see the connection between God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Are they related? Who are they? Well, you have to understand the gospel. Maybe for you, if you're a new believer, you need to find somebody to take you through the Gospel of John, who his whole driving goal and emphasis in the Gospel of John is said in John 20:31. I'm writing these things so that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and by believing have life in his name. Now, Paul knows these people have accepted that gospel. They understand the connection between God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ came proclaiming that he was the Son of God, that he and the father were one. Go back to John 10. Some of you need to know this today about the Christian faith. There is no moving away from this. In John 10:27-30, Jesus says this to a listening audience, "my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one." So for Paul to open a letter about being in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, he is teaching them the most basic orthodoxy of the Christian faith. That you can't come to know the Father, apart from the son, and all who come through the Son will have eternal life in the Father. This is Christianity, friends. There is no separating that out. There is no taking one without the other. But the blessing and benefit of being in Christ then comes in verse two. The glorious grace of the gospel brings you grace, and it brings you peace. Grace coming by the death that Jesus died in your place. That is all of grace. It's grace that God the Father loved the world and sent His Son in it to die for it. That he demonstrated our love in this, that while we were sinners, Christ died for that. That is all a work of grace. You can't get any of your work into that. If you try to, it makes the gospel null and void. So that's the root in the gospel. But here's the fruit peace. You have peace with God. You have peace in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the great blessing of being in Christ, of having salvation is, you know, your life is safe and secure in him. That's why we never move past the gospel, because whatever you're encountering today, brother and sister in the Lord, whatever hardship, whatever affliction, whatever suffering, if you know verse one is true about your life, you are in God, your Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ...you have nothing to fear. I got an email this week from a friend of mine who's on the mission field in a closed country...a dangerous place to be...he and his family. But just meditating upon the power of being in God the Father and Jesus Christ the Lord, just made it clear as day to me that this man and his family, though in a dangerous country, are in no greater danger than I am, because we're all in Christ. Do you believe that? You better. Because otherwise your hope and your faith, it's going to ebb and flow based on the circumstances around you. And if suddenly we become a country closed to the gospel....Oh, we're in danger now... Are we? If you're in Jesus Christ today, how could you be in danger? John 10 said it...you're in his hand and no one can snatch you out of his hand. And if that weren't enough, he gives you double coverage. He says, you're in my hand because the father puts you in his hand and puts you in my hand. Who's going to separate you from the love of God in me? Nobody. So who are the safest people on planet Earth, regardless of where they live? Christians, because you're in Christ. You try to figure out what does it mean to be in Christ? What do I gain out of it? You gain security, safety, protection, provision that is yours forever and can never be taken away. That's how wonderful it is to be in Christ today. You have grace from God. You don't work your way to him. You don't earn anything. It's been given to you in His Son. And because of that, then on the inside you experience peace. You know you're justified by faith, Romans 5:1 says, having been justified by faith, trusting in Christ alone, you have peace with God. That's the only way you get it. It's the only way. So I ask you this morning, are you in Christ? Do you know you're at peace with God because you have trusted in Christ alone by faith, and you've trusted in Christ alone by faith because you understand something about yourself, the sinner, that you need, his grace, that you cannot earn your way to him, work your way to him, please him in trying to do everything you can to perform for him. It's all of his grace. So you cry out to him, God save me, a sinner, and he offers you his grace and His Son. And in that comes peace that surpasses anything you could have down here, where, regardless of what your surroundings are. That's why a growing church always goes back to the gospel. Because that's where our strength is found. That's where our hope is found. If it starts to move or depart from anything beyond that, that church is going to be sunk. If it needs to lean on some really wonderful, charismatic...I don't mean it in the, you know, tongue sense. I mean effervescent, extroverted preacher who fires the troops up. What happens when he goes? If your hope and your faith, trust were in him, where is your faith going to go? Or some programs that the church can run, some style of music, whatever it is that you think that really holds my faith together. This church had none of those things. It's a baby church. It's two years old. They didn't have probably hymnals to open...they had psalms and hymns and spiritual songs that they would have memorized by oral tradition. They had the teaching of the apostles. They had the Old Testament. That's it. No men's and women's Bible studies and life groups and youth groups and children's ministries...were thankful for those gifts. But their faith and love and hope went back to one person alone, Jesus Christ. And they were standing firm. And Paul could say, I'm thankful for you to God, and I'm proud of you in Christ. So that's the start of a growing church. It's rooted always in the gracious gospel of Jesus. But then it moves to the fruits. If it's rooted in Christ and never moves past that...being found in him, receiving grace and peace from him, then what does Paul see and say?   
  That moves us to the second point today a growing church bears the good fruit of faith, love and hope in the soil of suffering. That's his greeting. He then moves to say, we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters. And it's fitting. If you go back to 1 Thessalonians just a few pages earlier, he gives thanks to God, always making mention in prayer. And how about that? He opens up in verse three talking about their work of faith, labor of love, steadfast of hope in Jesus. That's where they started. But they keep moving on in this. And so he moves from just giving thanks to underline the word ought. And as is fitting, there's a little more emphasis now as this letter was written a few months later, that he is so moved to say, look, it's not just arbitrary that you are living a life of faith and love and hope. This is a true work of God in you that you have stood firm and it promotes in me an ought. I should recognize this grace and give thanks for it. And there's the principle that I've said here from time to time, and I'll repeat as much as I see it, I'll say it. That the essence of Christian theology is grace. Therefore, the ethic of Christian living is gratitude. When I've said that before, I'm just not trying to pull some memorable one liner out of the sky. It's right in front of your face. Verses one and two are all about the essence of our faith. It's a grace based faith. And when you see the grace of God at work around you, you can't but help be what?...Giving thanks to God for it. And so, before we even get into the good fruits of faith and love and hope, could we learn from the Apostle Paul? Can we see him modeling an example to us that a that a growing believer and by certain a mature Christian is one that should be characterized by gratitude far more than grumbling. If you consider yourself a mature Christian, but don't find yourself often overflowing in gratitude to God for the work of grace in people around you, you are not a mature Christian. If you are characterized by complaining and criticizing brothers and sisters. If that's the the tenor or tone of when a name is brought up in the most private places in your heart or in your home, if in your heart is just this person that comes up in your mind, this other Christian, and immediately you have some flaw or fault that comes into your thoughts or in the privacy of your home with a friend or a spouse, and a person's name comes up and your instinct is to remember that flaw about them and say something about it is as much as you want to say it and gloss over it in a way that tries to make it sound less than what it is. It's criticism. It's complaining. I love you. You need to repent of that. If you want to consider yourself trying to imitate Paul as he imitates Christ, because the connection between us being thankful for the believers around us is you can't pull it away from understanding and seeing God's grace around you. It's not to say you don't see flaws, that you're ignorant to faults. But it's to say, what's the bigger picture you see around you? I mean, the person that just constantly has that refrain of, you know, church is just a bunch of loveless hypocrites and blah blah, you know, that I am certain they're in front of the line, because that's a person who now just lives in a world where everybody else is the problem but them. And what's happened there is they've just stopped seeing the grace of God. All they can see is the faults of people around. It sounds a lot like the problematic person in Matthew 7 that needs to be told by Christ not to judge. Not because judging is wrong in and of itself. Because if you're going to measure out to everybody, he says, Matthew 7:1-2, if you're going to be the standard, would you like God to apply that same standard to you? So he says, here's how you fix it. Before you go around looking for the speck in your brothers or sisters, eye find the log that's in your own. And when you find the log in your own eye...another way to talk about when you find the sin in your eye...the sin in your heart. If you're a Christian, you'll deal with that with the gospel. You'll recognize that I actually can come and confess to you, Father, that I have messed up again. Christ, thank you for the atoning work of the cross.  That you love me just the same. And then you take that same grace that you've now removed the log and help the person with their speck. That's how the gospel works amongst Christians. That's how Ephesians 4:32 and 5:1 work together. Forgive as you've been forgiven. Walking in love as beloved children of God. So it was meant to just be an aside. But if it grinds you up right now, like it did this week, me...Just is the instinct of my heart...gratitude, when I look around and see evidences of grace in your lives and people in my life. So that's maybe the preparation work. Um, that's the qualifying race before you get into the real thing this morning. You know, in the Olympics recently, you got to qualify in your heat. So Paul's qualifier before we move on was to say, hey, let's check our hearts. Are we thankful to God for the grace we see at work in other people's lives? And if we aren't, it's going to be hard for us to do anything with the rest of this sermon. In fact, if you were just corrected here by God's kindness in the work of the spirit through the word, I think it will help you then to say, you know what? Maybe I was thinking I was going to be looking for a lack of faith and love and hope in others, and I need to see it in my own life now and then move to help somebody else out. So first mark of a growing church in verse three, after we've had our sights adjusted, he says he's thankful to them because their faith is greatly enlarged. And again, we read already in 1 Thessalonians chapter one that they started with a work of faith, and that work of faith continues to grow. But it's growing. It's not plateaued, and it's not going backwards in the midst of the flames of affliction around them in Thessalonica. This faith is greatly enlarged, and he is, uh, layering words to try to give the picture to us that this is no small thing, though faith starts as a mustard seed. Yes, we're taught, but the mustard tree ends up being this massive tree. And he's saying, that's the way faith should work. It should grow to the degree it is greatly enlarged, meaning it's very obvious and evident that growth is happening. So you think about in your life. You know, looking at the mirror of the word, is your faith being greatly enlarged?, friend.  Now, I know we all go through different seasons of life and seasons of growth, and I would probably say most the most easy and obvious is when you first become a believer, when you go from darkness to light, I mean, everything changes.

  So you meet that person that just becomes a Christian and it's wow, they were they were so harsh with their words and now they're so kind and they were malicious before. And now they're loving and they were impatient. Now. Yeah, those things boom. They change and they're obvious changes. Evident changes immediately. But as time goes on, now you've got to drill deeper and peel back further. And it could seem like we have plateaued, but we should still have a faith that's greatly enlarged, able to be seen. This word Paul uses, he borrows it from some other secular writings, where it was used for a politician who rises to the highest position in society, or a massive tree in its full maturity. Which I like that picture because that reminds me of Psalm 1. You know, a tree that is deeply rooted in the Word of God produces fruit in its season and leaves that don't wither and it prospers in everything. I mean, I think of how we grow analogous to how we grow in faith to, to our physical lives. And maybe this is why we have to work harder the older we get. We see physical growth in our kids very easily. And if your kid comes to Christ at a young age, you might see spiritual growth in them very easily. Just basic things. But then we get older, right? And then from age, I don't know, most people probably 18 till whatever it is, you start shrinking. You just kind of physically plateau. I mean, unless you take steroids and try to stretch every day to get that extra 1/100 of an inch. Physically, it's hard to see that growth. And I would say that probably in most Christians lives, it could be true that spiritually, it's hard to see that growth because you have to go down deeper. You have to dig harder to kind of stir it up. Otherwise you just get complacent and kind of like we do physically. I mean, there's a lot of parallels there. Whereas in our kids, I mean, a couple months go by, they grew another inch. You notch it on the wall. You're not worried as much. But as time goes on in our Christian lives, are we still applying that same excitement and energy to trying to grow as we do other things? Maybe that's the best way we can compare it this morning. Think of the thing that kind of gets you up and going the most. What are you really into? We  try to get better in things most of the time. The guy that's obsessed with, you know, fighting back his 40s, not to speak autobiographically, but I mean, you know the guy. He's got all the latest fads to kick up his health, to lose that inch around the waist, fit his pants from his 20s again, and he's got his phone linked up with some gadget watch so he could know while he's working out if he's maximizing the heart rate and he's got his macros and micros in his food measured out, and he'll do all that, he'll go to great lengths to see his physical health maintained. I wonder if he applies the same to his spiritual life, trying to dial it in, trying to observe. Look, how am I dealing with the sin in my life? And why was I not bold there to share the gospel and trying to figure it out and scheme that? Or it could be anything. Shouldn't we attack it with the same fervor?...we should, if faith is what matters most in our lives. Those other things are good things. But sometimes we just need to compare our lives and say, that effort I'm giving over here, am I giving it here? To see a faith greatly enlarged. And then it moves into a love that grows ever greater because these things are connected. You know, a faith that's growing. Well, there should be some obvious touch points and the one that Paul observes by way of hearing from Timothy and probably others, is the love of each one of them growing ever greater. You know that, it's not just people saying they really love God, but it's evidence in how they love their brothers and sisters in Christ. You know, it's really wonderful and encouraging to us in what we pray for, is to see that God answered this prayer. Go back to 1 Thessalonians 3. You know chapter three, where he was saying how he was longing to come see them and he couldn't see them, and he wanted to come to strengthen and encourage them in the faith. And then he closes chapter three with this request of God. Verse 12, May the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another. Did God answer that prayer? He did. Does he answer our prayers? He does. Are you praying for that in your heart? Praying for love for one another to grow ever greater. If the picture of I was saying, you know, some of these words that you find them in other areas of ancient Greek, if the picture of faith greatly enlarged, was like a tree going up and taller and stronger, this word for growing greater was a picture from agricultural life, but it was of an irrigated farm plot that the waters let in and the floods go further out. They cover more ground. And maybe those are two helpful images how for our faith and love play together? As that faith grows deeper and taller, it goes wider. It covers more. Imagine a tree with its bloom in full maturity. How much shade it can give and how much fruit it can produce. And the the number one fruit it's producing is the fruit of love...love for others. Because if it's not manifest, evident in love for others, John says in chapter four, what? If you hate your brother but say you love God, you're a liar. That is what he says. If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this is the commandment we have from him, Jesus, that the one who loves God should love his brother. Because John 13:34 this new commandment I give to you. It's the 11th commandment...love one another. Verse 35, because the world will know who my followers are by the way you love each other. So when you say, hey, that faith that I want to be greatly enlarged, maybe what would be the first fruits of it in my life? What should I look for this morning? Look no deeper than...are you harboring any bitterness, resentment, malice in your heart towards a brother or sister in Christ? It's a fruit. And you got to trace that fruit back to the root and say, That Father, that's an area of faith I need to grow in. You know, we talked about Peter a few weeks ago saying, Lord, save me. I mean, have you ever gotten so desperate to love a person that's hard to love a brother and sister in Christ that you have that's been become your prayer? Lord, save me from this bitterness I feel because I can't do it on my own. It's not blame shifting. It's not diverting it. It's just you admitting like Peter in that moment, Matthew 14, we saw a few weeks ago, I am going down here. I mean, it should be that desperate in you if love is that difficult for you. But it's a first fruit of the Holy Spirit's work in your life. So that's the second thing, I guess one other thing to mention is back to first John 4:20 connected to 1 John 4:7. We love because love is from God, and whoever is born of God knows God. It is a test this morning that the probability of your salvation can hang on how you love others, and that doesn't make salvation a work. It's saying when you're looking for the fruit, that first fruit should be a love for other people. And if I'm saying if the character, the nature, the regularity of your life is one of judgment, criticism, malice for Christians, let alone the world, but you call yourself religious. John would give you reason to question...do you know God? You say you believe that Jesus is the Christ, but whoever loves the Father and loves others has been born of him. So it's a question of probability, of salvation, let alone credibility, that the credibility of our faith hangs greatly on the way we love. So that's the second piece. And then back to 1 Thessalonians again or sorry. 2nd, I'm going to probably say that a bunch in these early weeks, go back to verse four. So he covers faith and love. And then we might expect, because of the amount of times he connected faith, love and hope together to see that word hope in verse four. And we don't, but we get the essence of what hope is. It's when we have such a trust, such a hope in who Jesus is, and that he is coming back, that our faith endures. And you see that in verse four. We speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance in faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. That enduring faith, that persevering faith is built on hope. Hope keeps going. Hope doesn't give up. We learned in 1 Corinthians 13. Hope believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
  So as we kind of get like to do a little triage in our hearts this morning of a growing faith of our church and as individuals, do you see how these three things play together? That hope keeps going and how can hope keep going? How can your hope keep enduring? How could you not give up? We'll go no further back than checking love in your heart and faith growing stronger. And if you find yourself losing hope, ask yourself, well, have you kept your hope and fixed it on Jesus Christ? Or are you or are you hoping for something else going on around us? In light of this letter, the affliction going on around is your hope that you know that things will get better and turn around in our country, and that's where this is going to be, I think, a helpful way for us to think about what's going on around us in the next few months is that we don't put our faith and love and hope in anything other than Christ. Doesn't mean we don't care about the direction of our society...of course we do. Of course we want love to be the way in which a society would function. But that love means we protect. We protect the things God would protect. So we care about life from the beginning, right from the beginning. Because it's he who gives life, and it's God who can take it away. So of course we care about political matters, but they have to come back to be grounded in the faith, what we believe. And then with what we believe, we may not see the outcome we want. But is our hope gone? No, because our hope wasn't in that. Our hope was in God, and that's what carries us through. And even if society gets worse around us, that persecuting affliction that they were experiencing, what we see here in these first few verses is that it actually melted them close together, rather than chilled them apart. That's a good image to think about. If you think about how does persecution work in the church when it's going on around the church, it actually has the effect of warming true believers, melting us back together when our hearts can grow cold, and the heart that grows colder and colder towards other Christians when the affliction comes, may find out they were never a Christian at all. Persecution perfects true faith, 1 Peter teaches us. As much as it reveals false faith. It perfects it. It removes the dross. And true believers will remain when the church is persecuted. Make believers fake believers...whatever you want to call them will flee because it's going to cost them something. And the true believer, though vexed and discouraged, and as Paul addressed in 1 Thessalonians 5, there's weak ones and faint hearted ones, but they don't walk away. And when the church is loving each other well, they actually strengthen one another and build each other up. So ask yourself, the question is, is that how you see affliction around us? Do we see it like Paul? Do we see affliction as an opportunity for our faith to be authenticated and our spiritual maturity to be accelerated? Is that how you view suffering, affliction, persecution for being a Christian? Do you actually see how God could use it to accelerate your spiritual maturity? And that's what he wants to use it for. He's not allowing it for you to shrink back. He's allowing it for you to move forward and to grow. That's how it worked for Paul. And that's why he could say in 2 Corinthians 12 that when he's weak....he's strong. Because the Lord said to him, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Power is perfected in weakness. That's counterintuitive to us. We think power is perfected in strength. You know, I just need to keep getting stronger, and I have more power. And that's the way I win. And he says, no, God is going to put you in the in the crucible in the vise and squeeze out that which is remaining that's got its hope fixed in it's its faith and its love on something other than him, because he's producing in you through the pruning, what?...more fruit. John 15:1-2, it's producing more fruit, bearing greater fruit. That's what he wants in our lives. So if your faith is weak today, maybe rather than thinking, okay, what do I do to strengthen myself, Adam? First and foremost, ask God to bring you strength. And if your love is cold, run back to the gospel, remembering God's love for you in him. If your hope has diminished, remember that our hope doesn't rest on avoiding all hardship and adversity and just trying to find prosperity all the time. That's why the prosperity gospel is the plague on the church because it can happen...prosperity comes your way. You praise God for it, but you don't live for it. Because that prosperity, when it gets its way into the church and makes its way into doctrines, it'll do more damage than adversity ever would. It makes church easy, entertaining. It makes it about our preferences. It makes it about our priorities. We get caught up on superficial things. This is what Spurgeon said about when the church goes through tribulation. He says, "the church, when subject to constant tribulation, will grow exceedingly. Has it not often been so with the Lord's people?...times of cloud and rain. Pharaoh dealt harshly with Israel, he said, but the more he oppressed them, the more they multiplied, the more the Church of God is downtrodden, the more it rises in power. The bush burns and is not consumed. Nay, it flourishes in the flame." Do you believe that about the church that it does its best flourishing in the flame? And it won't be consumed, because we believe in the promise that Christ will build his church, and nothing, nothing can stand against it. Firm faith, fervent love...they combine for an enduring hope in the Lord today. Now, as we wrap up and as we get into this letter, I wanted to give you a homework assignment. It's that time of year...back to school. I only do this once in a blue moon to give you, like, real homework to take with you. Um, a lot of times I trust you're finding it for yourself. But there's a few things that came to mind. Um, going back to Christ is always where our faith and love and hope are found. But sometimes we also need some kind of things to motivate us and fanning the flame, faith, hope and love. So here's a few things that came to my mind to do this week. And, um, they're just there for the taking. First one, when it comes to our faith, uh, dig deeper roots into the word this week by reading 2 Thessalonians each day, five minutes out loud. I timed it shouldn't take you more than five minutes, and I think you'll get more out of it reading out loud. You'll hear it each day. Maybe read it with a friend or spouse or whoever and just read it out loud. Take that five minutes and familiarize yourself with it. So when you come in here, there will be a little, a little more for you to engage with, starting with what you remember reading. So that would be my first. And I think that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Uh, being that Psalm 1 person, I think you'll be blessed by just intentionally engaging 2 Thessalonians this week for five minutes a day. That's the first five. Then my next thing for you is when it comes to love. Let's follow in the footsteps of Paul this week. And here's the assignment. If you're wanting your love to increase, maybe it can be kind of kick started by gratitude. So I want you to think of five people maybe take today to do this that you could reach out to one person per day, Monday to Friday. They don't have to be in our church. And just write them a little thank you note. Send it to them, write it. Send them a text, a thoughtful one. Um, which means more than like three words and an emoji. Something that you put some thought into. Maybe a scripture that came to mind when you thought of them. But pick five people that you're thankful for, and maybe try to pick the people that you normally don't pick. Maybe pick the person that you find yourself grumbling against often, repent of it, and then kick start your love to increase by what is the thing, what's there's something in them that you could be thankful for in Christ. So I think that'll promote a little bit of love, but maybe, you know, stoke some of those fires, those embers that have cooled. And third assignment in regards to hope has to do with prayer. I challenge you to commit to pray this week. Five minutes to read and then five minutes to pray about the things you are least hopeful for. I mean, what better place to take them to than to the Lord? I mean, really challenge yourself. What am I almost at the brink of hopelessness about? I've prayed about it...commit this week, five minutes a day to pray for that very thing. Say, what am I most hopeless about? God, I'm going to bring it to you. And I'm going to commit to pray for this this week. Because putting your hope in the Lord this week is putting these things in his hands, isn't it? And I think the combination then of faith, love and hope will bring us back together next week ready to jump into verses 5 to 12. That's where we'll be and get the most out of it for our good and God's glory.

  Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning for your Word. We thank you that as we endeavor to study this letter that Paul wrote to a good church, and as he saw fit to thank you for a growing church, that he was proud of, that we would aspire to be the same. And we thank you that this doesn't have to be some big, uh, try something here in this church we've never tried before. But when we just see it in the Word, that you would just grow it in us to respond in obedience, to take the word and apply it to our hearts, to ask for your help, to do what Paul says...is to work out what you're working in. No one in here, Lord is here by accident today. You've intended them to hear this word from those verses, grounding them back in the Gospel of Jesus and how we need that, but also then pointing them, their sights, to growth, to growing in faith, love and hope. So we  thank you for the opportunity to do that today. Now as we sing and may the affections in our hearts move our lips, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.