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Hope for a Kingdom – Sermon on 2 Thessalonians

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This is 1 of 3 sermons I preached on 2 Thessalonians.

Or you can download: HopeForAKingdom 2015-06-28

Here are my super-rough notes.

v.3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers,1 as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

Look at what is being measured here and what they are being commended for: their faith flourishing and their love for one another is ever greater.
They must have had a really great life, right?

v.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. (2 Thessalonians 1:4 ESV)

That is what Paul is boasting in when he goes to other churches. Not miracles, not doctrine, now their accomplishments in the city, but their flourishing faith and their growing love for each other. Wow.

And so Paul boasts about their faith in perseverance and the afflictions they are enduring.

Have you ever talked to somebody and known exactly what kind of parents they had? We knew this family that worked for Wicliffe Bible Translators, and their daughter was just a little girl and she had the vocabulary of a novelist.

I have a friend who’s 5th grader is the best soccer player on the middle school team. He’s a 5th grader. Well, his dad played soccer for at least 20 years, and many of those years were with Arabs and Brazilians.

If you already know these kids’ parents, you know something about the kids that comes as no surprise. And if you meet the kids first, and see how incredible they are, you are not surprised to find out about who their parents are.

2 Thes 1.4-5
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. 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.

What if we suffered, struggled, and lived our lives with the knowledge that God is going to come and make everything right?

v.6-7 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, [7] 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

Are we OK with that? The world wants us to do things directly against this: to find relief on our own, NOW, without waiting, and to afflict our enemies, NOW, without waiting.

Does it help you to wait if you know what God is going to do?

v.[7] 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 [8] 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. [9] They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
(2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 ESV)

What if the number one goal of submission and obedience to the Lord revolves around patience? Or what if it is expressed in patience? What if it is by patient endurance that people come to see who Our Father is?

I have a friend who’s son asked him “Why do we have to worship God now even though we will worship Him for all of eternity? Isn’t eternity enough?”

He asked his son this question “If I asked you to do something and a stranger asked you to do the same thing during the same time so that you had to pick and only help one of us, which one would you help?
I’d help you, Dad!
Why?
Because I love you and I don’t even know that other person.
Then that is exactly why we worship God now instead of anything else, because we are always worshipping and serving something.

One more thing I want to say then I’ll wrap it all together:

v.11 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,
(2 Thessalonians 1:11 ESV)

God is the one making you worthy, not you! You don’t have to do a bunch of stuff, you just have to be the news.

So what if it’s true?

Acts 13:4–12 On Cyprus with Sergius Paulus

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Sergius Paulus on Cyprus had a Jewish sorcerer in his cabinet

  • This shows he was into spiritual stuff, which gives us some insight into why he wanted to listen to Paul speak.
  • Paul said “you are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun” and Elymas was struck blind! Paul knows what this is like!
  • Look at the amazing and radical mercy and grace of the Lord here. God spoke to these men in the language they would understand.
    1. The sorcerer got a show of supernatural power.
    2. Sergius got his little magic show with a message.

Put away the yoke and call out to the Lord!

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Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

(Isaiah 58:9 ESV)

Take away the yoke! The yoke is a tool you put on the beast of burden to make it do what you want. The yoke that they had went right along with the pointing of the finger. It was a yoke of unjust judgment and accusation.

What would happen if we quit condemning people and quit telling them what they did was wrong?

When I worked at the Rescue Mission, I made it a point to never tell anybody that the thing they were doing was a sin. There was already so much legalism in the air that any correction I gave would have come across in the same way as all of the yokes of  “no Christian should” and “you’d better hope God doesn’t catch you” etc.

But at the same time, a friend of mine noticed something happening. He said “Joy is offensive to rebellion,” and my joy in the Lord would offend people in their sin as they sat and talked with me. The joy of the Lord came across so powerfully that people were condemned not by me but BY THE HOLY SPIRIT who is going to do a much better job of transformation anyway!

What if that’s what we gave ourselves to? Putting away the pointing finger and the yoke of burden and call out to the Lord? If you have a friend or co-worker lost in sin, you most likely don’t have to tell them.

Most people walk around with the heavy burden of guilt and shame knowing full well the evil in the their hearts but not knowing how to break free.

News is something that has happened, as a result of which things are now different. Telling someone to pray a prayer is good advice, but it’s not good news. It’s not the gospel.
– NT Wright.

Telling someone to quit doing the evil thing they are doing is again, good advice, but not good news. Let’s proclaim the good news, and cry out to the Lord and watch Him answer.

Yokes are for cows, not people.

 

How I’m Doing Lent This Year

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The funny thing about Lent is that I’m the most motivated to celebrate it because of an incredible Ramadan I celebrated one year. 

I lived in a 99% Muslim country, and many of my friends were Muslim, so though I am a Christian I participated in the fast along with them out of respect. 

The purpose of the fasting of Ramadan is to try to court Allah’s favor so that the coming year will be good for you. On one night during Ramadan, it is the night of power, when Allah decides everyone’s fate for the coming year. Of course, you’re not sure which night that is, and you try to be really really good on that night!

The Bible says  

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  
(2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)

and 

even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—[6] and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus
(Ephesians 2:5-6 ESV)

So we don’t have to struggle and strain to please God, we are freely saved by grace!

So in secret, without offending any of our Muslim friends, in our house we celebrated in a different way. 

We feasted on ice cream every single night. 

When I bought the 5 gallon tub of ice cream from the store, everyone on the bus asked me if I owned a restaurant! Well I might as well have, because our party and nightly celebration of God’s grace shown to us in Jesus was more fun than owning a restaurant. 

When the final days of Ramadan came, we spent the whole day feasting with our friends and partying. They were happy then too (because the fast was over, and it’s happy like Thanksgiving). 

Of course when I came back to America, I was different. I noticed that the only reason we celebrate Christmas for a month is because of the sales and that Lent is only celebrated by Catholic people in a surge around Ash Wednesday and then every Friday for those that go to the fish fry. (I need to write about the awesomeness of the Lenten fish fry somewhere else, but not today.)

So here we are, saved by grace, and we have an opportunity to celebrate for weeks (47 days in 2015) before Easter, and I want to take full advantage of it! 

And so, the Lent party. 

The other thing about Lent, is that it is traditionally a time of preparation for Easter with penance, grieving, etc. You can’t even say Hallelujah during Lent. I don’t have the emotional fortitude for that. I think I’ll err on the side of joy and celebration if I have my choice.

So, celebrate the Lent party with me. Give up being a jerk for Lent, of being discontent with your walk as a Christian. Fast from self-judgment and condemnation!

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, [19] thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.  
(1 Timothy 6:18-19 ESV)