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Welcome to our look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 in Daily Drive Time Devotions,
day 2 of our look at this chapter, verses 3 and 4 today. As we launch into this
chapter, let me just give you a timeline reminder, the timeline of Paul's
relationship with this church in Thessalonica. He had gone to this church and
spent two or three weeks there starting a church.

After he'd left, they'd had some questions and so he wrote back after he'd left
an answer to some of their initial questions. Now remember that Thessalonica was
a city of many backgrounds and a church of many questions. They struggled
greatly with fears about the future.

Well, Paul wrote this letter to them to encourage them not to be afraid, to give
them hope. In between the time when Paul wrote that first letter and the second
letter that we're reading, Thessalonica had written a letter under Paul's name
saying that the return of Christ had already come and that they had missed it.
It played on all the fears that these people had.

And now they were filled with personal doubt. They believed that God was at work
in the world, but somehow they had just missed out on it. And so Paul writes a
second letter.

It's likely only weeks or a few months after the first letter to keep them
encouraged. And it's amazing to me that you see the heart of Paul as he writes
this letter. They had started to go the wrong direction from his words even
though he'd just written them a few weeks earlier.

But instead of scolding them, Paul encouraged them. He took his own advice from
chapter five of First Thessalonians. You need to encourage the timid.

Listen to the encouragement in verses three and four. We ought always to thank
God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and
more and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore,
among God's churches, we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the
persecutions and trials that you're enduring.

As we're looking through this chapter, we're also looking together at some
different Bible study methods. Yesterday, we looked at a character studies. We
looked at Silas and Timothy.

Today, I'd like to focus in on a method of Bible study called a word study. A
word study is where you focus specifically on the words and their meanings. And
in this word study, I'd like to focus on the words that are behind the specific
thanksgiving that Paul gave for this church and see what we can learn together
about thanking God for others in these words.

Now, just by the way, I didn't use a lot of fancy books for this off my
bookshelf. I just went to a website. You can just go to a website like Bible.

org, Bible. org. You can type a single verse in the top left where you see the
place to type verses.

And then you can look at one of the versions where you can click on each word.
You click on a word and it'll bring up a brief word study from the Greek
language. Anyone can do this now.

It's a great thing about the internet. You don't have to have a lot of books.
Paul writes and he says, "I thank God for you.

" And as we walk through this, I'd like you to not only listen to the word
study, but also to think of someone that you can thank God for. Paul's going to
talk about thanking God for someone because your faith is growing, your love is
increasing, you've persevered in persecution and trials. Who can you thank God
for as we walk through this?

Ask God even now to bring somebody to mind as we talk about each of these
things. It might be the same person. It might be a different person as we walk
through this.

Paul says, "I thank God for you. " And then he uses the word faith. Your faith
is increasing.

Faith is the common Greek word for faith in the New Testament, pistebo. Faith
has the idea behind it of a conviction that leads to trust. Not just a
conviction about something, "I know this is true, I understand it's true," but a
understanding that leads to a deep trust in a person's life.

Paul says, "I see that in your life. I see when other people around are not
trusting, when it's all too easy to question and doubt and wonder why and hold
back, you're the type of people who've decided to trust, to lay it on the line
for Jesus Christ. " And he says, "When it comes to your faith," he uses another
word, he says, "it is growing.

" Now this word growing, it's a simple word, but it's also a compound word in
the Greek language, which means growing exceedingly. You read in a lot of
versions, growing more and more. That's one word in the Greek language, it's a
strong word.

Not just growing a little bit, I just see it increasing more and more and more.
And because of that, it inspires my faith. So let me ask you, as we talk about
this conviction that leads to trust, who can you thank God for right now?

You see it, you see their faith growing. Listen, there's something about
thanking God for the growth of others that leads to growth in your own life.
This doesn't just influence them before God, it also leads to growth in your own
life.

God, thank you that I see growth increasing in the life of, just put a name in
mine and give God specific thanks for their growth. Thank God for faith that you
see in other people's lives. Paul moves on from faith to talk about love.

I thank God, he says, for your love. And there he uses that word that you may
have heard, agape. There are a number of different words for love in the Greek
language.

In fact, if you haven't read C. S. Lewis's book called The Four Loves that talks
about the different kinds of words that are used for love in the Greek language,
I highly recommend it.

Some of the words for love are friendship kind of love. Some of the words for
love have more to do with the action of love in a common human relationship.
Some have to do with married kind of love.

This word agape, it has to do with sacrificial love, love that acts. And when it
applied to God and how he loves us, love that sacrifices. Paul says this love,
this love that acts and makes a difference, he says, "I see it increasing in
your life.

" Now, this word increasing may sound simple to you again, but it's another over
the top word. It's another word that literally means to super abound. And the
idea of this word increasing is there's a freedom in this idea.

A love that naturally overflows. Love that has not been constrained to try to
increase it, but a love that has been given joyful freedom to be expressed. A
love that's not a duty, but it's a delight.

Who do you need to thank God for when it comes to love? You see their love
increasing. It may be for you, but more likely it may be for the world around
them.

Maybe for their children, maybe for their church. Their love isn't perfect, none
of us are perfect, but their love is increasing. Maybe it's somebody in your
small group, maybe it's someone in your family.

Right now in your mind say, "God, thank you for this person. And thank you,
Jesus Christ, that because you're in their life, I see their love increasing. "
Paul talks about a third thing that he thanks God for in these people's lives.

He talks about what's happening in their life because of persecution and trials.
Let's start there. He says, "In persecution and trials, I see something
happening in your life.

" Now, it's interesting. Sometimes you don't even have to look up Greek words or
Hebrew words. Hebrew is the language of the Old Testament.

Greek is the language of the New Testament. Sometimes you don't even have to
look them up in Hebrew or Greek to understand what it's talking about. Sometimes
it's just a matter of focusing on the English words.

And here you see two words, persecution and trials, put alongside of each other.
"You have faith," he says, "in persecution and in trials. " Trials, that's
something all of us have just because we live in the world.

That's the common problems that all of us face. But he also says you face
persecution. You've got problems in your life because you're a believer.

People know you're a believer, and that has brought a special kind of trouble
into your life. Often, a word study just means carefully looking at each word in
the verse and listening for what you can learn. You don't necessarily have to
look it up in Greek or Hebrew.

And here you learn that in both persecution and trials, God can give us faith.
Lloyd John Ogilvie said about this verse, "The fact of faith in Christ does not
mean exemption from trouble, but the discovery of power to endure in trouble. "
And that's where Paul uses the word perseverance.

Perseverance is a powerful word. "Hupomane" is a word that focuses on someone
who has not swerved from their purpose by trials or persecutions. It comes from
a root word that means to "terry behind.

" This is the person who doesn't run out when everyone else does because they
have a perseverance in their heart. F. F.

Bruce calls this the "patience of hope. " The idea behind this word perseverance
is not passive acceptance, but active faith that God is at work even when I
cannot change the circumstance. That's perseverance.

God is at work. Even when I cannot change the circumstance, God is at work. So
Paul says because you have that perseverance, you are enduring.

Now this word "enduring," it doesn't mean white-knuckled fear. It means
confident hope. It means a peace.

It really comes from two parts. The beginning of this word in the Greek language
means "in the midst" and the end of this word means "holding on. " So it's
someone who holds on in the midst, in the midst of life, in the midst of
troubles, in the midst of difficulties, in the midst of persecutions.

You're enduring. You're holding on. So thank God right now for someone, someone
who is holding on in the midst.

Not only pray for them that God would give them strength to continue to hold on,
but also thank God for them that they are holding on. Pray for someone right now
who needs the strength to hold on also because they're in the midst. And maybe
they haven't gained it yet.

Maybe they haven't seen it yet in Christ. Well, they may know Christ, they may
not, but they haven't seen yet that they can hold on to his strength in the
midst of what they're going through. Now one other word study as we end this
look at 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 3 and 4.

Paul says at the beginning when he talks about giving thanks for these believers
that he He says we ought always to thank God for you. The idea there of those
words is we are bound. He's saying this is our solemn responsibility before God.

And then he goes on to talk about faith and love and endurance, faith, hope, and
love are in those three. Paul began 1 Thessalonians with those three. He begins
2 Thessalonians with those three.

This is how to be the kind of church that causes leaders and other churches to
be thankful to God. This is also how to be the kind of believer that has a sense
of thanksgiving before God in your life as you live this life out. The Christian
life is a life of faith, hope, and love.

The Christian life is a life of growing, increasing, and enduring. Tomorrow
we're going to continue our look together through this chapter as we look at
verses 4 to 7.