Monday Morning Rewind- Idleness in the Church

What are Monday Morning Rewinds?  Click here to see my original post explaining them.

Yesterday’s sermon was the last of the series I’m preaching through the letters to the Thessalonians.  Next week, Bob Clark will be preaching, then I’ll focus on Thanksgiving, then start a new series called “Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: Luke’s Record of the Events Surrounding Jesus’ Birth.”  I’ll post more on that series later.

In the context of 2 Thessalonians 3, this sermon dealt with the problem of idleness in the church.   You can listen to this sermon here.

Paul started this part of his letter by asking the Thessalonians to pray for the gospel of Jesus to move forward.  This should be the goal of all of us as Christians- the advancement of the gospel! The warnings here were that not all people will have faith in Jesus, and some will react violently to it.  Paul reminds us that we have nothing to fear in sharing the gospel because God is faithful and will guard us from Satan and the opposition that comes to the gospel.

While Paul expresses his confidence that the church will continue in the ways they were instructed, he warns them against idleness.  Idleness is a word that means “deviating from the prescribed rule or order.”  It was used in a military-like sense.  The prescribed rule or order was the gospel Paul just mentioned.  When we step outside of Scripture, we will become lazy in the work God has for us.

Monday Morning Rewind: The Judgment of God at the End Time

What are Monday Morning Rewinds?  Click here to see my original post explaining them.

Yesterday’s sermon was part of the series I’m preaching through the letters to the Thessalonians.  Next week, I’ll continue in 2 Thessalonians.  In the context of 2 Thessalonians 1, this sermon dealt with answering 2 common questions in our world today- why do bad things happen to good people? and why would a loving God send people to hell? You can listen to this sermon here.

The 2 questions:

Why do bad things happen to good people? One reason we suffer is to prepare us for heaven. The Thessalonians were obviously still struggling with persecution.  And Paul writes that their suffering is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God.  Suffering doesn’t automatically make us worthy of heaven; but suffering demonstrates our worthiness.  We are given the free gift of God’s grace, and when we face affliction, it is refining us to reveal that grace working in us- therefore, God gets all the glory.

New Sermon Series on 1 and 2 Thessalonians

Tomorrow, I’ll start preaching through a new sermon series I call “Living Together.”  In this series, I will be preaching through the letter to the Thessalonians to discover Paul’s admonition and instruction to those people and apply it to our church.

1 & 2 Thessalonians are great letters to read through because they cover a variety of issues.  Most poignant are the reputation of the church, the work of its leader, living a God-honoring life, and the return of Christ.  In fact, these letters strongly talk about the return of Christ, the final judgment, and the Antichrist.

There will be much to learn from this Scripture, and my prayer is that God will use this sermon series to see salvation come into many lives, and to convict Christians to walk closer to Jesus and live righteous lives, and to “do so more and more.” (1 Thess. 4:1)

You can follow along with these sermons each week by visiting the sermons page of our church’s website.