Bible Text: 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12; 2:13-17 | “Growing Up” 2 Thessalonians 1:3-12, 2:13-17

Introduction:  Retooling Labor Day

I.        (1:3, 2:13) “We ought always to give thanks to God for you”

A.     (v3) “…your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is…”

1.      How does this happen?  How does one become a good parent?  Practice, baby steps, risks.

2.      (2:16) “May our Lord Jesus Christ, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them”

B.     (v4) “…steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.”

1.      How do steadfastness and faith happen?  Why are some so quick to quit?

2.      Why does persecution and affliction occur?  Why doesn’t more occur?

3.      (v5) “This is evidence of God’s righteous judgment, that you may be considered worth”

C.     (v6) “God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,”

1.      Romans 12:19-21, “Leave room for God’s wrath.  For it is written, ‘It is mine to repay…’”

2.      (v7) “…and to grant relief to you who are afflicted”

a.   So let us pray for Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria, Egypt, Iran, North Korea,

China

II.       When the Lord Jesus is Revealed from Heaven

A.     Waiting for relief would be more tolerable if God were to deliver wrath in a more timely fashion.

1.      The repayment plan, along with relief, Paul links to when the Lord Jesus is revealed from Heaven.

2.      And now, a word about hell—(v9) “They will suffer…eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” [See who qualifies in v8]

B.     (v11) “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling”

1.      (v12) “so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him”

2.      John 15:8, “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”

C.     (v2:13)) “God chose you as the first fruits to be saved…”

1.      Take the money and run is a bad mentality here.

2.      “…through sanctification and belief in the truth.”

3.      Romans 10:14, “How can they believe in the one in whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

Conclusion:   (v15) “Stand firm and hold to the traditions they you were taught by us.”

Revelation 14:13