1 Thessalonians (Program #14) – Watchfulness and Soberness

When Paul wrote words to the Church in Thessalonica to encourage them, he stressed that the life of the believers is a life full of hope. And even at the endurance needed to live the Christian life is linked to that hope and flows out of that hope. But just as what is the hope that he is referring to? Well, is not the hope that one day we will all die and go to be with the Lord in heaven.

Our hope and the hope of all believers is that one day the Lord Jesus will come again and we all will be caught up or rapture to meet Him. The rapture of the believers and the second coming of Christ are topics of immense interest to Christians and even to many unbelievers. But do the popular and common notions about these important matters really hold up in the light of an honest and thoughtful examination of Scripture?

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1 Thessalonians (Program #13) – The Hope of the Christian Life

In the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians he vividly describes how desperate mankind is apart from God. Listen to Chapter 2:12
“That you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

But in his letter to the new believers in Thessalonica he repeatedly points them to the great hope of all the believers and that is the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the promise of our rapture at the end of the age.

Rapture is a big topic in the New Testament but in the few selected verses in 1 Thessalonians we have a marvelous overview that will fill all believers with the genuine hope. Promised in God’s word and secured in the shed blood of Christ. He is coming again and all those who believe will join Him at that coming.

“But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping, that you would not grieve even as also the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and arose, so also those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, God will bring with Him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are living, who are left remaining unto the coming of the Lord, shall by no means precede those who have fallen asleep; Because the Lord Himself, with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are living, who are left remaining, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will be always with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

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1 Thessalonians (Program #12) – An Exhortation Concerning a Holy Life for the Church Life

Every parent can learn a lot about how to properly care for and raise your children by observing how the apostle Paul care for his spiritual children in 1 & 2 Thessalonians. By the time he comes to Chapter 4 he has a strong and sober warning related to the danger and damage of fornication and immorality. But he does so only after having first nurtured, encouraged and nourished these precious young believers fostering them in the growth of the divine life.  Then as a faithful and exhorting father he brings to them these critical points in these chapters.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #11) – Encouragement for Faith, Love, and Hope

When the apostle Paul first passed through Thessalonica and established the Church there, he set the young and new believers on a solid footing not just preaching the gospel to them but also anchoring them in the three strong elements of their life in Christ, faith, love and hope.

Chapter 1:3, “Remembering unceasingly your work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father;”

Then some months later, Paul found himself excessively burden to see how the young Church in Thessalonica was progressing. So much so he can bear it no longer, so he sent his faithful co-worker, Timothy to help foster their faith and encourage them.  Chapter 3:1-2, “Therefore when we could bear it no longer….. we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and encourage you for the sake of your faith.”

These are precious words. We want to have a chance to really look into the heart of the apostle and the lives and the experiences of these young believers in Thessalonica.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #10) – The Reward of Fostering

Of all the writings in the New Testament, perhaps the deepest and most profound are those of the apostle Paul. To Paul it was given to unfold many of the great truths of the Christian faith and to make known the eternal purpose of God. But his letters to the church in Thessalonica are striking in their simplicity. Because to the new believers in this city Paul became a nourishing and cherishing parent, fostering the growth of his spiritual children.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #9) -The Care of a Nursing Mother and an Exhorting Father

In the tender and intimate letters of the apostle Paul to the young church in Thessalonica, is very interesting to consider what he stresses. In one way these are not high words or deep or even seemingly profound and there is no mention of miraculous things or of works of great power.  Rather the apostle reminds the believers of the normal and upright manner of life in which he and his co-worker were manifested for them when they were together just one short year prior.

Listen to his word again in Chapter 1:5 of 1 Thessalonians,  “For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, even as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.“

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1 Thessalonians (Program #8) -The Church Becoming the Embodiment of the Triune God (2)

One of the essentials for being a Christian is to appreciate the Bible as the word of God. But for most of us our reading and our understanding of the Holy Word fall far short of what it should be.

For instance, take a passage like 1 Thessalonians Chapter 2:12 where Paul tells us that we have been called into God’s own kingdom and glory. Do we really have an adequate appreciation of all that these implies or do we even have a proper understanding of things like God’s kingdom and God’s glory?  Probably we just skim along taking such marvelous word for granted.  But one of the benefits we have in this program each day is that the Lord richly unveils and brings us into deeper realities of His word.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #7) – The Church Becoming the Embodiment of the Triune God (2)

In both of his epistles to the Thessalonians Paul stresses at the beginning that the Church is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a strong confirmation to this in another passage of the Scripture in the gospel of John. However in order to see the parallel we must first be willing to reconsider the traditional and commonly held understanding of the gospel of John Chapter 14, “In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.”

You see, probably before I was even finish reading these verse, many of you were already thinking, “Oh, yes, that is talking about the Lord preparing our heavenly mansion.”  But is that really what these verses present to us or are there a strong confirming word that the Lord Jesus has prepared a place for us today in God Himself, a place for all the believers to stay?

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1 Thessalonians (Program #6) – The Church Becoming the Embodiment of the Triune God (1)

The way in which Paul, the apostle opens his letter to the Thessalonians is very interesting, “to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Well, you may wonder what’s so significant about such a greeting. First, notice that Paul didn’t just say that the Thessalonians believers were in God, in a general way or even in God and in Jesus. But he inspired by the Holy Spirit chose these words specifically, in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We considered in recent programs, what it is to be in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus.  Today, we will see more about what it is to be in Christ?

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1 Thessalonians (Program #5) – The Church in the Triune God

In all of his epistles, the apostle Paul under scores that our God is Triune. That is He is God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. And as such He becomes available to us not only as our Father and Savior without but also as the very source of our Christian life within.

Paul concludes 2 Corinthians, a marvelous book with an unmistakable reference to the Trinity, 13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  But in both 1 & 2 Thessalonians he begins the books by drawing our attention not just to God in a general way but to the Triune God as he says, “to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.“

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