This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome to week three, day four of our look through the New
Testament. We're looking at Second Thessalonians today. These two books, First
and Second Thessalonians, in many ways, work together to show how to live the
authentic life.

One of the themes of this second book is how to endure in trouble. How do you
live an authentic life of hope? How do you keep growing when you face real
troubles in this world?

Now, whenever there's like a second of anything, you should always ask, why a
second? And we know there's a First Second Thessalonians, why a second book?
There's no new subjects really that he deals with in this book.

There's the same emphasis on better understanding their standing in Christ,
better understanding the hope of the second coming. This is an example, a second
letter of the fact that we don't always get it the first time and that the Holy
Spirit needed to inspire a second letter because they needed to hear it again in
order to begin to live it out in their lives. A timeline reminder of what
happened here.

Paul goes to the city of Thessalonica and he spends a very short time there, two
or three weeks, starting this church. And then he leaves and he depends on the
Holy Spirit to bring up leaders and begin the growth of this church. He writes
back to them a letter to answer some of their initial questions.

Remember, we looked at yesterday, Thessalonica was a city of many backgrounds
and many questions. They struggled greatly with fears about the future. In the
midst of those struggles, someone wrote to the church a letter under Paul's name
saying that the return of Jesus had already come and they'd missed it.

And now they're all upset about this. They're filled with personal doubt. They
believed that God was at work in the world, but they thought somehow they had
missed what God was doing in the world.

So one of the motivations is, Paul writes his second letter, maybe only a few
weeks or months after the first letter to let them know, no, they can still have
hope. Instead of scolding them for getting this letter and believing the wrong
things, he encouraged them. He took his own advice from chapter five of 1
Timothy, encouraged the timid, encouraged those who are struggling.

He took his own advice from even this book when he says, we ought always to
thank God for you, brothers and sisters, 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 and all the persecutions and trials that you are enduring. That's from
chapter one, verses three and four.

As he writes, he writes to really focus on the truth of the second coming. Since
they were worried, they were anxious about this. And in three specific places,
he talks to them about the truth that Jesus is coming again and how that should
help them in their daily life, their daily attitude.

First, he says, Jesus is coming again, so don't feel abandoned. Don't feel
abandoned even when you're persecuted. Jesus is coming again, so even when
you're persecuted, he says, remember, the justice comes with his return.

It doesn't come in this world, it comes in the next. It comes when he sets
everything right. So in the next verses from the ones we just looked at, 2
Thessalonians one, five to six, he says, and God will use this persecution to
show his justice and to make you worthy of his kingdom for which you're
suffering.

In his justice, he will pay back those who persecute you. So he says, don't feel
abandoned. Don't feel like God is not seeing what's happening to you.

Just know that the time right now is when the crime is being allowed to be
committed. But there'll come a day when God's going to show up and the punishment
will be meted out for that crime. Now, if those who are persecuting, like Paul
was a persecutor turned to Christ, then he will forgive that.

But if they do not, he will pay back those who persecute you. In verse seven,
and God will provide rest for those who are being persecuted. And also for us,
when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven, he will come with his mighty angels.

So he's saying, don't feel abandoned. This is not the way it's going to always
be. There is a day of rest coming.

He will come with his mighty angels. There is a day when we're going to rest in him
forever. So as it is now is not as it always will be, even though it feels that
way.

So don't feel like you're being abandoned. And out of all that, he says in verse
11 of chapter one, so we keep on praying for you. Asking our God to enable you
to live a life worthy of his call.

May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts
you to do. And that all comes out of the strength, the power of recognizing I'm
not abandoned. He's with me no matter what circumstances I face in this world.

Do not let the circumstances you're facing tell you what God thinks about you.
Let God's word, let the cross, let the resurrection tell you what God thinks
about you. Let the second coming tell you he has not abandoned you.

Jesus is coming again, don't feel abandoned. The second part of the book is
Jesus is coming again, so do not be shaken. Very clear in second Thessalonians
two, one and two.

Now, dear brothers and sisters, let us clarify some things about the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ and how we will be gathered to meet him. Don't be so
easily shaken or alarmed by those who say that the day of the Lord has already
begun, don't believe them. Even if they claim to have had a spiritual vision, a
revelation or a letter supposedly from us.

So he says at the beginning, just because people say Jesus has come again, just
because they say it's already happened, don't be shaken. This is the same thing
Jesus taught his disciples. He taught them people are going to come, they're going to
say there's wars, there's rumors of wars, there's earthquakes, don't be
deceived.

He said all these things must happen. And then I will come. People want to say,
because these things have happened, Jesus has already come, so you should be
worried.

And Jesus said, don't be deceived. Don't let him deceive you. All these things
must happen first and then I'll come.

Now, second Thessalonians two includes a long list of verses about someone
called the man of lawlessness. This is the beast of the book of Revelation. So
Paul is writing to say that person hasn't appeared yet.

Just as the book of Revelation says, that person has to appear before everything
ends. And so he says, because that person hasn't appeared, obviously Jesus
hasn't returned yet. Now, the difficult idea for us to face about this man of
lawlessness, this beast, is that things will get worse before they get better on
this planet.

That there'll come a time at the end when we face a time of tribulation, of
things getting worse. Don't be shaken. Do not be shaken.

Even if you must go through some of those times, the scripture tells us, do not
be shaken 'cause God is with you even through that. And so second Thessalonians
two 15 talks to us about the attitude of heart we should have no matter what
circumstance. With all these things in mind, dear brothers and sisters, stand
firm and keep a strong grip on the teaching we passed on to you, both in person
and by letter.

Don't let the circumstances of this world steal from you the hope that God wants
to give in everyday life. Hope is greater than circumstance because it's based
on God's promise. It's based on God's future.

So Jesus is coming again. Don't be deceived. Don't feel abandoned.

Don't be shaken. And there's a third thing he says to us. This one's a little
surprising.

Jesus is coming again, so do not be idle. Don't just hang around waiting for him
to come again. Keep at work.

Second Thessalonians three six says this. And now, dear brothers and sisters, in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, stay away from all believers who live idle
lives and don't follow the tradition that they receive from us. And then Paul
goes on to talk about the fact that while they were with the Thessalonians, they
worked.

Even while they were preaching, they worked to make sure that they could have
some food on the table. He says that all of you should be doing the same thing.
There's some evidence in the early church and in Thessalonica that their
idleness was coming from a misunderstanding of the second coming.

The idea was Jesus is coming soon, so why in the world should I stay in this
job? Jesus is coming soon. I'm quitting this job.

I'm just going to hang out. I'll live on my savings. I mean, how long could it be?

I got enough savings for a couple months. Jesus is coming soon, so I'll live on
my savings and I can get out of this job. I just won't do anything.

I'll just hang out. But the truth of the matter is, no matter when Jesus is
coming, even if he's coming tomorrow, the scripture teaches us that we want to
live today building into our lives for what he's going to do in eternity. The idea
that I'm just going to quit my work, I'll just be idle, is the idea that what I do
on this planet has nothing to do with eternity, but that's not what the
scripture teaches.

The scripture teaches that the faith that I have, the work that I do, the people
that I love, the prayers that I pray, those all go on into eternity. Blessings
eternal, crowns eternal, rewards eternal that go to Jesus, praise that goes to
him forever. So that's why Martin Luther in that famous quote said, "If I knew
the world would end tomorrow, "I would plant a tree today.

" Why would you do that? Because he knew somehow that what he was doing in
faithfully planting that tree was looking forward to eternity. What we do on
this earth looks forward to eternity.

What we do now is going to make its way into eternity. So don't be idle. Don't be
idle.

So in real practical ways, he says in 2 Thessalonians 3, 11 to 13, yet we hear
that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other
people's business. That's what happens when you get idle, by the way, you meddle
in other people's business. Back to the verses.

We command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to
settle down and work to earn their own living. As for the rest of you, dear
brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good. Never get tired of doing
good because you know it goes all the way into eternity.

So this book teaches us that you don't get away with evil. No one does. God is
just.

It teaches us that Christians have a future in spite of persecution. It teaches
us that God is in the driver's seat. He's in control in every circumstance.

It teaches us that work is not just a necessary evil. It is God's will. And that
what we do in our work is looking forward towards and building towards eternity.

Let's take a minute to pray together. Father, thank you for the truth that's in
this book. And as we read it, we pray that those truths would come into our
hearts and lives.

We don't want to feel abandoned. So we affirm right now that we're not, no matter
what persecution we're going through, because the story's not over yet. And in
the end, you're going to set everything right.

We don't want to be shaken by misunderstandings or by anxiety about the second
coming. Instead, we look forward to you coming again. We want to stand firm.

We want to keep a strong grip on your teachings. And we don't want to be idle. We
don't want to become lazy because we think that this world has nothing to do with
eternity.

Instead, help us to see how in some miraculous way, right now, you're working in
our lives, even through our problems, in ways that are going to bless us and bless
others, not only now, but all the way into eternity. So we ask for it together.
In Jesus' name, amen.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to look at 1 Timothy, a book about how to live with
power.