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The apostle Paul is writing to Christians to encourage their faith to grow further and deeper. While the Christians in Thessalonica are doing well, he is urging them to excel still more (1 Thessalonians 4:1). We have noticed that Paul is looking at areas in the Christian life that might be easily overlooked when trying to be pleasing to the Lord. Paul has written about holiness, exposing the problem of sexual immorality. Paul also wrote about love, exposing the problems of not aiming to live a quiet life, not minding your own business, and not working with your own hands. But in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 the apostle Paul is going to shift his discussion to the second coming of Christ. It seems in our religious culture that there are two perspectives when it comes to the second coming of Christ. One perspective is to scare everyone, suggesting that every world event or every change in the country’s culture must mean that Christ is coming back today. I think this has led to the other perspective which is to suggest that the second coming does not matter at all. The suggested idea is that it does not matter what we believe and there is no reason to study it because God wins in the end and he is going to come back. What we are going to notice in our lesson today that the apostle Paul did not subscribe to either of these perspectives. Paul did not ignore the topic but also did not try to instill a constant fear in these Christians either. What do we need to know about Christ’s return so that we can be pleasing to God? What hope are we to have in knowing that Christ is coming back? Please open your copies of God’s word to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 we are going to look at how we can excel even more in future hope…
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We left off in Romans 8 with a powerful proclamation about who we are in Christ. If we are living according to the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, then the Spirit testifies that we are sons of God (cf. Romans 8:12-16). We have received the spirit of adoption so that we can be called children of God. If we are children of God, then we are heirs of God. We have a great inheritance awaiting us. But then the apostle Paul says something that might be surprising at the end of Romans 8:17. Paul does not end his thought by telling us that if we are children of God then we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Paul concludes with an important condition: “provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
I want us to think about what Paul is doing as we begin this lesson. Romans 8 is a glorious chapter about who we are in Christ. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). We have been set free from sin to live righteous lives before the Lord (Romans 8:4-5). We are adopted children of God and can cry, “Abba, Father!” (Romans 8:15). But if we are children of God and heirs of God, what are we supposed to make of the problem of suffering? What does it mean when we suffer? What should be our perspective about our relationships with God when we are crushed by trials? Paul is going to take us through this process to help us understand the role of suffering and the glory of the gospel…
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We are in a series in which we are looking at how we have been called to more. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1 that these Christians in Thessalonica know how to walk and are living in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. But Paul instructs them to excel even more in being pleasing to the Lord. We do not want to become spiritually stagnant. We do not want to spiritually drift away or lose the zeal and love for the Lord that we had at the beginning. So Paul writes to encourage excelling even more in a passionate pursuit of the Lord. In our last lesson we saw Paul’s concern that we would excel more and more in holiness (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8). As we come to 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 we are going to read another area in our lives where we can excel even more…
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