Paul’s Love for the Thessalonians

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Don Merritt

1Thessalonians 2:17-3:10

Paul takes this opportunity to express his love for the church as he laments his absence; he misses them.  He has wanted to return to them, but Satan has prevented it. Oh how I wish he would have mentioned the how and why of this, but since he didn’t, I guess we’ll never know exactly what Satan did to prevent his return to Thessalonica. It is interesting however to note that Paul clearly attributes his inability to return there to the work of Satan. Think about it: Paul left the city and persecution came upon the church, and now Paul cannot return. I can only assume that Paul had done a mighty work there, mighty enough that Satan was making a major effort to destroy it; thus goes the spiritual battle that still rages today.

For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

1Thessalonians 2:19-20

The church in Thessalonica is Paul’s “glory” for in starting that body of faithful believers, he has indeed done the Lord’s work to build the Kingdom and give glory to God, so much so in fact, that Satan has found it necessary to become involved personally.

We should pay close attention to Paul’s words in 3:1-5, for in these verses he reveals something very interesting. It was driving him crazy that he couldn’t get back to Thessalonica, and when he could stand it no longer, he sent Timothy there to find out about their faith! If I had started a new church somewhere and then heard that it was under persecution, I would worry about their health, if anyone had been hurt or killed, but Paul was worried about their faith; would they falter and return to the old ways? Paul’s priorities were not the same as mine! Doesn’t that mean that I need to rethink my priorities?

Next Paul tells them of the occasion of his writing: Timothy has just returned to him with the news that their faith is secure. Notice that he doesn’t say anything about the physical effects of the persecution; was anyone hurt or killed… just that their faith is firm. Paul expresses quite intimately how thankful he is that their faith is secure, about his joy at the news, and how he prays that he may return to them so that he might provide for their spiritual needs.

I can’t recall the last time I heard anyone talk like that in my lifetime, can you?

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How We Know He Loves Us

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Don Merritt

We know that God loves us; yes, that’s right- He loves all of us, and that includes you. I realize that there are times in life when we might question whether or not He even knows we exist; I’ve had those times too. I’ve been around long enough to have learned that He never turns His back on us; He doesn’t need to, because in those times, I’ve usually already turned my back on Him without realizing it.

I’m not always faithful to God, but God is always faithful to me.

Then I ask myself: Does God really love me? How can He love me after I’ve messed up so badly? Here is the answer to those questions…

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

1John 4:9

If God hadn’t loved us, would He have gone to all of the trouble to send His Son into the world so that we might live? Mind you, when God did that awesome thing, we didn’t “live” just because His Son arrived on the scene, Jesus had to give up His life so that we might live by His life. This “life” wasn’t merely physical and biological, no- it is eternal and of His Spirit. It is the very life that humanity lost way back in the Garden of Eden when the first humans decided to try out the one thing God had asked them not to do…

And yet God went to all of this trouble for us anyway!

That’s how much He loves us, that’s how much He loves YOU.

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Photo of the Week: March 3, 2021

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Don Merritt
Believe it or not, this is a fern farm, located in Volusia County, Florida, which claims to be the “Fern Capitol of the World.” I can’t vouch for that, but there sure are a lot of these farms, and while they may not be pretty, where would florists be without them?
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Reminders of Paul’s Visit

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Don Merritt

1Thessalonians 2:1-16

At first glance, this is an odd section; is this part of the introduction or has Paul been challenged somehow? Has someone called him a fraud since he left them? When he wrote to the Galatians and Corinthians that was the case… but not here, for as far as we know, Paul’s authority and motives had not been challenged in Thessalonica. Thus, if that is the case, why would he write like this?

In this section, Paul reminds the Thessalonians how he behaved in their midst. He had been badly treated in Philippi and had come to their city. In Thessalonica, his message was quickly opposed, but Paul preached the gospel anyway, because it was pleasing to God. He didn’t concern himself with the approval of people, for God’s approval was enough. He wasn’t looking for money; indeed, he supported himself by working while he was there.

Many received the gospel message, and these he cared for as though he was their father, with encouragement and loving concern, yet now he feels it necessary to remind them of this. Has he suddenly felt a need to hear their praise?

I think the answer to this riddle will provide us with some fascinating insight into both the psyche of Paul and into what is expected of all Christians- as well as helping to achieve the purpose for which Paul is writing. You will no doubt recall that Paul is writing them to encourage everyone in Thessalonica to remain in their faith while under persecution, and so this part of the letter should encourage them, but how?

Look carefully at the passage and you will see that Paul has linked together the message of the gospel with the way he is living his life. Notice in particular that he is trying to show that his motives are in harmony with his message, and that he acted it out. The message of the gospel is a message of love on God’s part, but delivering the gospel message was an act of love on Paul’s part, even more so after his treatment in Philippi and with the opposition in Thessalonica; he did it anyway to please God and so that they might be saved because Paul loved God and because Paul loved the Thessalonians: This was Paul’s love in action. There is no greater act of love than to share the gospel message.

What should the church at Thessalonica do to hold firm to the faith while being persecuted? Live their faith in love every day. What should we as Christians be doing every day? We should be living our faith in love in all that we do.

By taking this approach, Paul is also setting up the emphasis of the remainder of the letter.; again, his message to them (and to us) is that we must put the message we preach into practice in our lives.

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Confident in the Lord

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Don Merritt

But he knows the way that I take;
    when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
 My feet have closely followed his steps;
    I have kept to his way without turning aside.
 I have not departed from the commands of his lips;
    I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.

Job 23:10-12 (Larger context: Job 12)

I’m sure pretty much everyone knows the story of old Job, who was a good and righteous man, but whom God allowed Satan to test. Old Satan thought he could break Job away from God, but after terrible trials and hardships, with the exception of one slip, Job held fast and received a great reward from God.

In the preceding verses, Job laments that he cannot find God to make his appeal for relief directly. In expressing this desire, Job used to idea of finding God’s house somewhere, but where?

Yes sir, Job wanted an audience with God…

Unlike Job, we can have an audience with God any time we want because God’s Son, through His action on the cross has taken away the separation that had stood between God and Man from the time of humanity’s rebellion against God described in Genesis chapter 3.

Yet even though Job couldn’t get a direct conference with God to make his case, he remained confident that he had lived according to God’s ways, that he had been faithful to God for his entire life, and thus, he knew that in the end, God would stand with him.

And Job was right, for in the end, God gave him great reward and made him whole again.

Just think about this for a moment…

Even though Job did not have the advantages that we have in Christ, he exhibited great faith, in spite of his slip up at one point, and I have to wonder if I could have been as steadfast as he was. Yet throughout my life, and I have had my share of challenges, God has always been there, He has always been steadfast, even when I might fall flat on my face. In those times, He offered me His hand to get up again.

You know, as I typed these words, I realized I did so with a long face, feeling a bit sad, if I’m honest. What am I thinking? How could I be so silly? A long face? Sad? Yes, sometimes I fall flat on my face…

And He offers His hand to help me up!!!

Yes, I regret that I mess up my fair share of the time, but when I do, He helps me get up again. I think I’ll go find a rooftop to shout from: This is a wonderful thing, don’t you think?

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Greetings and Thanksgiving

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Don Merritt

Paul begins the letter with the customary greeting, identifying himself along with Silas and Timothy as its source. I highly doubt that the three of them co-wrote the letter; however, Silas and Timothy had actually spent more time in Thessalonica than Paul had, and by mentioning them here, he probably intended to convey that they all stood as one in the things he was writing about.

Verses 2-10 contain the balance of Paul’s greeting in the form of thanksgiving to God for the Thessalonians themselves. This is not quite as perfunctory as it might seem at first, for in these few verses, Paul tells the brief history of the church, and begins to reveal why he has written this letter to them.

Very quickly Paul mentions that they, apparently more than many other churches, jumped right into the work of the gospel, as a response to the love of Christ. Notice verse 5 in which Paul says the gospel came to them with more than words, but with power and the Spirit since they immediately became imitators of Paul, and thus of Christ. Wouldn’t it be something if our churches today were more prone to this! They knew how Paul lived among them, and they copied Paul’s way of living, right off the bat. As they did this, they encountered opposition in the community in the form of persecution, but they kept at it, and in so doing the church in Thessalonica became the model for all of the churches in the region; quite a success story.

It would seem that they had so completely turned from Pagan worship to being followers of Jesus Christ that news of this spread far and wide, beyond their own provinces, so Paul makes it clear that he is not writing to correct the way they have responded to the gospel; there is something else on his mind. Paul will have more to say about the Thessalonians as he continues into the next chapter, and we will pick up his narrative in the next installment…

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What you look for you will find

Posted on March 2, 2021 by Don Merritt

If you are thinking about buying a green car, you will suddenly notice that there are many green cars on the road; if you are thinking about buying a new green Toyota, you’ll start to see them everywhere. If you go out on a Saturday night looking for trouble, you’ll be calling a friend to bail you out of jail on Sunday morning.

We always find what we are looking for.

I see a lot of posts that have the word “sin” in their titles, I hear a lot of people talking about sin in others, sometimes I hear people talking about the sin in their lives. Why are so many focused on sin?

We always find what we are looking for.

Do we look for the sin in TV shows or movies or books? It isn’t hard to find. Are we looking for sin in culture; that isn’t hard to find. Are we looking for sin in other people; that’s pretty easy to spot as well, and to be sure, they can see our sin just as easily.

We always find what we are looking for.

The Pharisees were the most righteous of all men, and it would appear from the record of Scripture that they were on the lookout for sin, and they found it everywhere in their midst, and they were very quick to point it out, but when the Son of God was in their midst, they missed Him entirely, preferring instead to find sin; that unending search for the sin in their midst was their downfall.

We always find what we are looking for.

Nice going guys…

Paul didn’t tell us we should be obsessed with sin:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 3:1

We always find what we are looking for.

Maybe I’m wrong; maybe I’m crazy.

 You might say I’ve gone soft on sin; you might say I’m a sinner.

It could be I’m old and feeble; It could be I’m out of touch.

But if we find what we are looking for, wouldn’t it be a bad idea to be looking for sin?

If we find what we are looking for, wouldn’t it be a better idea to be looking for the things that are from above? If we find what we are looking for, wouldn’t it be a great idea to be looking for His presence?

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Paul Writes to Thessalonica

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Don Merritt

The letters that Paul wrote to that church are much discussed today, if for all of the wrong reasons. His first letter, written about 50 – 51 AD is very likely Paul’s first pastoral letter. This was done during the time of Paul’s second missionary journey, after he had visited Thessalonica, and while he was staying in Corinth. We can easily see what occasioned his writing: The Thessalonian church was a very young church, having been in existence for only a short time. It was located in a challenging environment, where it was finding itself under serious persecution right from the start. Paul wrote to this church to urge them to remain in the faith- to urge them to continue down the road of discipleship as followers of Christ. As we read this letter, it is vital that we keep this in mind, lest we make the mistake of reading it in light of current day theories about things that Paul is not discussing in the letter.

The letter follows the typical Pauline pattern, one common in his day of letter writing. It begins with a greeting in which the writer identifies himself, and then moves on into a thanksgiving passage. Next comes the body of the letter, and it ends with a final greeting. Paul varies from this format only once in chapter 2 where he includes a second thanksgiving and we’ll cover it when we arrive at that point.

This is a letter that all of us should concern ourselves with for it has much to teach us. Of course, you can say that about any book of Scripture, but the letters to the Thessalonians have more than most that applies directly to our circumstances in the modern world. Most of us don’t live under anything that can be called persecution, but I would imagine that most of us experience temptations similar to those of Thessalonica, namely to avoid standing out in our communities as being “different” so as to avoid embarrassment or the wagging tongues of those who are not followers of our Lord. Obviously, the Thessalonians had far more serious repercussions to deal with than most of us do, and as I see it that should make the silliness of our fears all the more starkly obvious.

Well dear reader, there is the “preview”: We’ll begin in earnest tomorrow as we charge ahead into chapter one of a most amazing new adventure into Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian church; see you then!

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Love in Action

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Don Merritt

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

1John 3:18

It’s all well and good for us to talk about love, after all everybody feels better when the conversation is over. Please forgive me if I’m too blunt here but, talk can be a bit too cheap: Love, real true Godly love, requires action.

To be completely clear, I’m not talking about romance.

The example John used in this passage is found in verse 16:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

It’s unlikely we’ll be called upon to die on a cross or anything like that, but if our brother or sister is hurting in some way, we should set our own wants aside and give them a hand, don’t you think? If someone is hungry, we give them food, if they are hurting emotionally, we stand beside them, if they need a shoulder to lean on we stand fast with them, and if they need a hand to pull them up, we pull them up.

In short, we put their interests and needs ahead of our own: That is Godly love.

Remember, Jesus didn’t go to the cross because He wanted to get His name in the news, He did it so that we might have life eternal; I’m sure He could have found something more pleasant to do that day, but no, He put us first instead.

I wonder: How can I put love into action today- how can I let His love in me work in someone else’s life today?

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Sunday Sermon Notes: February 28, 2021

Posted on February 28, 2021 by Don Merritt

Title: This is Love

Text:  John 4:7-12

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:7-10

This is where John begins the central core of this letter, and this core runs from verse 7 to the end of this chapter.  It is not only the central core of the letter, but it is also the central core of Christian theology.  All of those comparisons at the beginning of the letter, and all of the discussion of evil, antichrists and the testing of spirits comes back to this theme, for without it, the rest of the theology of our faith is rendered meaningless.  In short, what is written in this section is the one thing that gives Christianity its power and authority, and against which the gates of Hell itself cannot, and will not stand.

The last sentence in this text is the key: God loved us. In fact, he loved us while we were lost, and not loving Him at all.  Yet God loved us anyway− He loved us so much that He sent Jesus to die for us.  Yes, you’re right, this has already been pointed out in this letter, but here it is again, as the core of everything else: that is how important it is that we grasp this simple concept.

How could God love us so much and in spite of everything?  Because God is love.

That being the case, we are to love one another, just as God loved us.  Nobody can do this unless God is in that person, which is to say that person is in Christ.  Loving one another as God loved us runs counter to every teaching of this world, as it also runs against our natural human inclinations.  Therefore, if a person does not love, it is because God is not in him or her.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:11-12

Simply stated, this love core flows like this:

  1. God loved us while we were still sinners.
  2. God sent His Son to die for our sins.
  3. We loved God and responded to the Gospel.
  4. God loved our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Therefore, so do we.

We see this pattern at work once again in verse 11.  God loved us, so we should love each other. Then John, as was his custom, takes one more step.  Since no one has ever seen God, and since God loves all of us and we love Him, if we also love each other, God’s love will be complete in us and visibly expressed within His Body, the Church.  This is as far as John has gone so far…

At this point, we can infer that there is another step.  The other step is implied in John’s mentioning that “no one has seen God.”  OK, why did he choose to write that?  Think…

No one has seen God, but if we love one another as God loved us, then His love will live amongst us, and though us all will see it.

I have seen a number of debates about Evolution and Creation.  These kinds of discussions usually have at their core, an assumption that if we cannot observe some “evidence” that God exists, then we can determine that He does not exist.  I’m no scientist, but this seems to be a natural inclination on the part of people who are educated with regard to the Scientific Method.  Remember that one from your school days?  It was the one about observations, and testing theories with observable evidence.

Back to John.  Have you ever thought that it would be nice if you could find the positive “proof” of God’s existence? Yes, something that can be observed and studied?

Are you sitting down?

John just gave it to you− The proof is God’s love at work in our lives and within the Body of Christ; at least it should be.  Maybe if we started taking these verses to heart and putting them into our everyday manner of living, like we are commanded by God to do, more people would notice that the greatest “proof” of God, the observable evidence is right there in front of us all: Love for one another as Jesus has loved us, and gave His life for us.

Let’s wrap up for today with a question to think about: Do you ever wonder if it is a coincidence that the whole concept of Godly love has been corrupted and demeaned in our culture? After all, doesn’t society use the word “love” to mean just about anything other than Godly love?

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