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1 Thessalonians Sermon

When sanctification seems impossible | 1 Thessalonians 5:22-28

When sanctification seems difficult/impossible!

Good morning, church. How are you all doing this morning? How I long for some response from you guys like a normal Sunday we used to have – seems like long time ago now.

We hope and pray that God would open doors and do a miracle in getting us all started once again – like days of old.

As a church, we have been going through the first letter written by Paul to the Thessalonians and today we end the series on “Abiding faith” as we meditate on the final words of Paul in this letter from 1 Thessalonians 5:22-28.

22 Abstain from every form of evil. 23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. 25 Brothers, pray for us. 26 Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. 27 I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. 28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The story is told of a young girl who accepted Christ as her Savior and applied for membership in a local church. “Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your Life?” inquired an old deacon.

“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Well, are you still a sinner?” “To tell you the truth, I feel I’m a greater sinner than ever.” “Then what real change have you experienced?” “I don’t quite know how to explain it,” she said, “except I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now that I am saved.

I’m a sinner running from sin!” she was received into the fellowship of the church, and she proved by her consistent life that she was truly converted. Beloved, I want you to think about this statement today morning – “I am a sinner running from sin”.

This is the calling with which God has called us – that we may be holy and be like His Son Jesus Christ – even though we have the sin nature active in our hearts.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 says it clearly – “For this is the will of God – your sanctification”. But we live and walk among broken glasses. Our own sin and the sins of people around us make us feel that sanctification is too difficult and slow and too demanding and sometimes, our recurring sins and sins which so easily ensnare us keep following us like a leach – sometimes making us think that sanctification is impossible.

Even though God calls us to a life of holiness and demands a life of purity – we still continue to fall in sin – and struggle with a slow and difficult process of sanctification.

Doesn’t our thoughts, our words and actions yesterday or even today morning show us that we are so far from being like Jesus? When our so-easily ensnaring sin refuses to let go and when sanctification seems tough and impossible, what do we do as a Christian?

Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you this morning to look unto God – our sanctifier – as we meditate on our passage for today.

I want to title my sermon – “When sanctification seems difficult…” and I pray that you would remember these 3 points when you feel like giving up on God’s process of sanctification.

1. Do not give up your fight against sin!
2. Remember someone is praying for you!
3. Remember God is faithful to complete what He has promised!


1. Do not give up your fight against sin!


Before Paul goes on to talk about God – our sanctifier and perfecter from verse 23 – Paul commands the Thessalonian believers in verse 22 – “Abstain from every form of evil”. What kind of word is that?

Paul is just about to bring about an amazing truth of Christianity – that it is God who is faithful to sanctify you and keep you blameless until Jesus comes again. But, before you and I think that “Because God sanctifies me, I have no part or responsibility in being holy”, before we think that, Paul says that “Abstain from every form of evil”.

Brothers and sisters, if our view of God’s sovereignty and faithfulness lead us into a lifestyle of sin and laziness and sloth – we haven’t understood God’s ways of sanctification yet.

So many of us lose hope too soon in our battle against sin and many of us let go of our arms and ammunitions thinking there is no point of fighting against my sin. And few of the reasons that some of us give are –

“It is God who sanctifies, let Him do it – I could very well go ahead and spend some time netflixing.” Or another reason that we give is – “Brother, I have tried and struggled and done everything possible to fight my sin but I am still not able to overcome it.

I think I cannot fight anymore. I think I am born with this infirmity. I am going to make peace with it and accept it as my weakness. Main jaisa hun, main vaisa hi hun – main badal nahi sakta.”

Beloved, this school of thought has led many to think that holiness is simply impossible to have and if I strive for holiness, then I can possibly never get an assurance of my salvation – because I will always see my failures and my sins and doubt my assurance.

And today – more and more, we see churches and Christians and even ourselves – somehow narrowing down this call to holiness and watering it and diluting it to a great extent.

Why? They simply can’t believe that complete sanctification is possible. It is true – Beloved – that we do not attain practical perfection in this life – but then sometimes – Christians think that no degree of obedience or holiness or purity or goodness or love or repentance or transformation is required for entering heaven.

They decide to make peace with their sin. They then begin to look for ways and means to justify their sinful lifestyle. For eg, I am justified in Christ – I am accepted in Him – so no matter what I do, I am forgiven and I am a child of God. Or another similar justification given is God’s Grace – “We are living in an age of Grace, brother?

If God really wanted us to be holy, then why would He give us Grace and Mercy?” Beloved, so many times, we use the same doctrines that were meant to help us for our sanctification as justifications for our sin. The hidden sin that we fight with and we struggle against are not there to make peace with.

God’s Grace is what we tap into not just for our forgiveness but also for our sanctification – for overcoming that one sin which you are battling against since months. Even the justification with which God has justified us in Christ Jesus is the solid ground and foundation for the life of sanctification and holiness that God has called us to.

And that is why, Paul says, “Abstain from every form of evil”. Do not put down your arms and ammunitions. Do not be bogged down by your constant failures and think that there is no point of us fighting this fight against sin. At the end of His life, Paul says – “I have fought a good fight.” Paul says to Philippians – “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Paul writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27 – “So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

Does that sound like resting and chilling out? Beloved – do not forget this – GOD SANCTIFIES US THROUGH OUR OWN STRIVINGS AGAINST SIN! God works in our hearts both to will and to do and we work out what God works in. If our theory of sanctification has no element of us striving to holiness – we are not in sync with the sanctification of the Bible.

Hebrews 12:14 says – “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” So, what am I trying to say? Beloved, no matter how much you feel like a failure and no matter how difficult sanctification looks like – Do not give up your fight against sin? My son is learning to stand on his own.

It is so beautiful to watch him do that. He strives to stand up – catching hold of our legs, hands, ears, nose – he stands up – he leaves his hands and then balances himself on his feet – you should see him struggling to balance with fear but with such a joy and smile on his face on his accomplishment that he can stand without holding on to anybody.

And then after a few seconds, now he stands upto 1 minute – but after that, he falls down. What does he do? You think he will stop? Naa. He stands back again and then falls again. And again he stands and again he falls. I would not be exaggerating to say that he has done this a 1000 times already but he doesn’t lose hope.

He will stand again and again and again and again until he stands without falling. Oh my dear brothers and sisters – sanctification is like that – do not let go off your hope because you failed – because you fell down – because you sinned – no – no – no – one day you and I will be perfect like Jesus Christ.

Do not let go off your guard – do not lose hope in this battle – sanctification is slow, painful and difficult – but a day will come when there will be no more sin to fight against – no more wars to battle.

What a day that will be! 1 John 3: 2-3 says

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

Are you a child of God? Are you struggling with your sin?

Hold on to your fight, Beloved! Because God sanctifies us through our own strivings against sin!

But let me go on to my next point –

2. Remember someone is praying for you

Some years ago – this thought gripped my heart and I was excited – someone is praying for me!

Look at verse 23 – Paul is praying that God would sanctify the Thessalonian Believers. And in verse 25 – he asks them to pray for Paul as well. “Brothers, pray for us”.

When the way of sanctification gets tough, brothers and sisters, I want you to remember – someone is praying for you! Maybe it is your spouse, your parents, your friends, your brothers and sisters in Christ, your elders or someone you do not even know of.

There is someone battling on his/her knees for your sanctification – and if you do not know of anyone who is battling for you – I want to turn your eyes to someone who is definitely interceding for you at the right hand of God the Father – and who is that – the man Jesus Christ!

The same God who became flesh and battled against temptation, sin and the like – as a man – He has compassion on you and me! He prays for you! He prays for me!

Let me give you a few examples of his prayers when He was on earth. In John 17:19, when Jesus prays to the Father – He prays – “For their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they may also be sanctified through the truth” and in verse 11 – He prays – “Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one”.

And he asks the Father in verse 15 to keep them from the evil one. The Lord Jesus in his incarnation as a man on this earth sanctified Himself (lived in perfect holiness) in order to sanctify His people who would believe in His name.

And he kept praying that God would keep them and preserve and make them one just as God the Father and Jesus Christ were one. Perfect unity is possible only among sanctified disciples.

Jesus prays for us that we may be sanctified and united so that we would then in turn pray for one another and bear each other up. The best thing that you can pray for someone is that God would sanctify them and make them holy.

Let us look at another instance when Jesus prayed for his disciples. In Luke 22:32 – When satan asked Jesus permission to sift Peter as wheat – Jesus said to Peter – “but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”

He prays for us! He prays that our faith may not fail! He prays that we may be sanctified and holy. He prays that we may be one! He prays that we may love each other as He loved us.

If you and I have anything to boast about regarding our holiness – it is just that God sanctified you through the prayers of His Son and through the prayers of the saints whom you are surrounded by!

When you struggle in your walk in holiness – remember this dear child of God – Someone is praying for you! But let me go on to my last point which is my most important point to hold on to when sanctification seems tough – because if that didn’t exist, points 1 and 2 were useless! And that is –

3. Remember God is faithful to complete what He has promised!

In verse 24 – He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. Beloved, sanctification is not a process (prakriya) that you have begun but it is God! It is God who decided to take a man – who was full of sin and evil – and cleansed him and washed him and made him clean and whole and justified in Jesus Christ and made him a child of God!

It is God who decided to do it! It is God who started the good work! And then He decided to place this man back into the same broken world – with sin and evil and darkness – and decided to keep him and preserve him in Jesus Christ and make him more and more like Jesus.

Well, it was God who started it. And it is not becoming of Him to leave it half undone. He has never done that! He will never do that! He has counted the cost – and He paid the price – and that was His only Son – Jesus Christ! Paul binds our sanctification to His faithfulness! Brothers and sisters, I want you all to find the roots of your sanctification.

Where does sanctification spring from? We have a small hint in verse 24 – “He who CALLS you”.

Beloved, much before our sanctification – there was a calling with which He called you. It was not an ordinary calling.

It was not a general calling. It was a particular – effectual – and personal calling – when He commanded very strongly into our hearts – ‘Follow me’ – and we left our all and followed Him.

Much before our sanctification – came God’s call to our hearts personally. But this is much clearer if we will read Romans 8:29-30 – “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified”. Glorification is when we become completely and perfectly like Jesus and that is the holy calling that we have, Beloved – being conformed to the image of His Son! But it all began with God’s foreknowledge – He loving us even before the foundations of the earth.

He then predestinated us to become like Jesus! Those whom He predestined – them He also called and those whom He called – them He also justified and those He justified – them He also glorified. I don’t know if you are able to imagine this picture with me – those whom God loved before the foundation of the world – them He predestined – not even one left out.

Those whom He predestined – them He also called – not even one left out. Those whom He called – them He also justified – not even one left out again! And those whom He justified – them He also glorified – not even one left out till the end! There is cycle from foreknowledge till glorification and there is not even one lost out in the process!

There is not even one separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus in this process! Ah! That is what Paul is talking about in 1 Thessalonians when He binds our sanctification to His faithfulness! Let me repeat that once again – The certainty of our sanctification rests on God’s faithfulness! He hasn’t lost even one during this process of sanctification.

Jesus says in John 6: 39 –

“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

Even when we fail, even when it is dark, even when we feel nothing is working out – we can rest on the faithfulness of God – who promises to complete what He has begun. And this is the assurance that we get from the Word – “HE WILL SURELY DO IT”.

I thank God for the “wills” and “shalls” of the Word of God. If He says, that He WILL – you can rest assured that He WILL do it. Our assurance of salvation doesn’t come by minimizing the need for holiness or sanctification or by focusing on the measure of our holiness – our assurance comes by placing our trust on the measure of God’s faithfulness to do the sanctifying work that he promised to do.

Let me end my sermon here by showing you how committed God is to complete the work of sanctification in our lives and that commitment is much more than mine or yours. The aim of God in the death of His Son was your holiness. Jesus died that you may be holy.

I want to read to you Ephesians 5:26 and it says,

“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her”

—make her holy. Your becoming holy is as sure as God’s invincible purpose in the death of his Son.

In electing you, His purpose was that you may be holy. In calling you, His purpose was your holiness. He who chose you is faithful. He who called you is faithful. He who justified you is faithful.

He who sent His Son to die for you is faithful. He who sanctifies you is faithful – He will surely do it! He will surely do it! He will surely do it! If He doesn’t do it, God will become a liar and that is just not possible!

So, my beloved brothers and sisters, when sanctification gets tough, when holiness seems difficult, when practical Christ-like living seems impossible, remember the faithfulness of God bound to your sanctification – bound to your holiness!

2 Thessalonians 2:13 says,
“God chose you from the beginning to be saved through sanctification”

—not apart from sanctification. Salvation comes through sanctification, and no other way.

We have a great and glorious ground of assurance not because holiness is not needed, but because God is faithful to preserve us and make us holy and blameless like His Son Jesus Christ. He will surely do it!!!

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1 Thessalonians Sermon

Grace driven purity – 1 Thessalonians 5:22-28

Good morning church! I just want to thank God for the opportunity to share God’s Word with you this morning.

If you’ve been tracking with us, over the last few months we’ve been trying to understand this theme “Abiding Faith” from 1 Thessalonians. What we’ve learnt through all those weeks is that it’s ultimately God who sustains our faith. Today we arrive at the last passage of this letter that talks about “Sanctification” which means “being purified & set apart for God”.

Would you join me as we pray and ask God to help us understand and respond to today’s passage?

During my schooling days, there was this condition called “Out of syllabusitis”!

I’m sure many of us might be familiar with this term. We would spend quite a few of the last few nights cramming and preparing for an exam & when we receive the question paper, we are shocked to see questions that we’ve never seen before. Out of syllabus!!

It’s also true that these could have been questions that were in our portion which we didn’t prepare for but we would still refer to them as “out of syllabus” because these questions leave us stumped.

I think similarly when it comes to our Christian faith, there’s a lot of emphasis and encouragement on how to become a believer in Christ through repentance & faith but the common Christian experience after that is often “out of syllabus” for many.

We are left stumped and clueless. Often, we are handed over many commands to follow but as we go through our days as believers be it in our private moments when we are alone or when we are in public interacting with other people, we soon we realize that we simply don’t have the power or the ability to “purify ourselves daily and set apart ourselves for God”.

So brother or sister, if you’re at that place today where you’re confused on how to live the Christian life in purity or if you’re tired of your failing moral performance, just know you’re not alone. What help is available?

1. God’s gracious promise (v22-24)

God’s promise is the only thing that we can rely on to sanctify our lives. What I find interesting is that v22 “Abstain from every form of evil” is a command & imperative for God’s people.

But in the very next verse we are given a promise which will help us obey this command. It’s God’s gracious promise that empowers our ability to obey. But how do I know if God will honour and keep this promise? Let’s look at 3 aspects of God’s gracious promise:

  • God’s promise is based on the Work of God – Now may the God of peace (v23)That term God of peace refers to God reconciling us back to Himself through the work of Jesus. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, God has signed & sealed a peace treaty with us who have trusted in Jesus. As part of God’s peace treaty, He has promised no more wrath, no more condemnation on us who used to be enemies of God because the payment was paid in full by Jesus Christ.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1)

And I think this is a powerful truth for us because it tells us of how God views us if we’ve placed our full trust in Jesus. God’s not waiting for an opportunity for us to mess up so that we can be relegated back to being enemies.

Neither is God requiring our performance (achievements, self-will, our efforts) to maintain this peace treaty. It’s based on the permanent work of God.

But you may say it’s one thing to have a peace treaty through the work of God, but it’s another thing to sanctify a sinner like me. That requires enormous ability. That’s why the second aspect of the promise is important:

  • God’s promise is fulfilled by the Power of God – May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (v24) I hope we are able to see the astonishing promise made here in terms of our holiness. Complete sanctification – meaning complete pure and set apart for God! When the Lord Jesus comes again, believers in Jesus would be made “blameless” in their spirit, soul and body. In other words, there won’t be an iota or a remnant of sin left in us!!

What?

And this promise is made to sinners!!! Can God do this? Scripture is filled with testimonies of God doing things that are absolutely impossible for humans. I think this culminated in the Resurrection of Jesus. I mean we think about all that humans boast about and all the medical advances that have been made over the centuries, but yet no human has been able to provide an answer to the reality of Death.

With the sad news of hundreds of thousands that have passed away due to the current pandemic despite all types of efforts to contain the virus, we realize how helpless we are and yet Jesus Christ rendered death powerless!  It’s astonishing.

I love the way Ps. David Jeremiah puts it:

“God, by His exerted power, reversed the process of death, overturned the process of decay, caused a silent heart to beat again. He was resurrected with an eternal body which according to Philippians 3 serves as a prototype for our own resurrected bodies”.  

Ps. David Jeremiah

If God’s able to overturn and destroy something as fatal and deadly as death, then God can do anything. He can certainly sanctify us completely and make us blameless when Christ comes again.

I think this is an important truth for us especially when we respond to habitual patterns of sin which often leaves us despondent and in despair. God is able to purify you!

  • God’s promise is sustained by the Character of God – Now you might say I understand the work of God & the power of God – God is able to sanctify and purify us, but 2000 years have passed, what if God changed His mind?

We have had a consistent history of messing up a zillion times and not being faithful to God, what if God alters His promise?

And that’s why v24 is important:  He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

God’s character (His faithfulness) is being highlighted here. Brothers and sisters, I realize that this aspect of the character of God is especially important because we trust a person on the basis of his/her character.

Is the person faithful or not? That determines our level of trust. God’s not like us “sinful humans” to make and break promises as it seems convenient. He puts His character on the line to back up this promise and assure us that He will do what He promised to do.

This committed promise of God is what empowers pure and holy living.

Just to illustrate:

In marriage, it consists of a promise and loving responsibilities. Which among both is important? Both. The promise are the vows made by the couple to each other on the wedding day & the loving responsibilities are the outworking of the promise.

Without the promise, there’s no security for the couple when they mess up in their responsibilities. Without the loving responsibility, there won’t be an opportunity for the couple to care and serve each other.

But remember the promise precedes the loving responsibility. The promise binds and holds the loving responsibility. Similarly, it’s God’s promise to sanctify us is a security that empowers us to live in purity.

But not only do we have God’s gracious promise, but we also have

2. God’s Gracious Provision (v25-27)

God’s gracious Provision is through spiritual disciplines! That might be a strange idea for some of us because we’ve never thought about it in that way. Many times we view spiritual disciplines like a labourer instead of a son or a daughter.

What I mean by this is that a labourer works to get a salary from His master (spiritual disciplines are a means to grace). On the other hand, a son or a daughter don’t have a transactional relationship with their Father because they are loved and accepted.

All the gifts they enjoy are not a salary payment made to them but means by which they can enjoy and grow in their relationship with the Father (spiritual disciplines as means of grace) V25-27 mentions 3 spiritual disciplines as a provision for us to help us in our sanctification:

  • Prayers of believers:  Brothers, pray for us. (v25) I find it interesting that after sharing so much of biblical truth in this whole letter, Paul closes the letter by asking them to pray for him and his companions.

Despite the fact that Paul was an amazing church planter & preacher, Paul recognizes how much of divine help (grace) is required to help him grow in purity, continue to trust Jesus with his entire life & pursue the mission that God called him to.

And that’s a humbling thought to realize that despite all our so-called accomplishments, despite how many years we may have been as believers, despite how active we may have been in ministry, we are still little children dependent on the grace of God for everything including purity.

Praying is an acknowledgement that we are desperate and helpless & only God is the only one who is able to help us.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
(John 15:5)

It is a humbling thing when we ask our brother or sister to pray for our purity and holiness.

At the same time, it reaches out to God’s enormous power source to come to our aid whenever we are in need. 

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
(Hebrews 4:16)

  • Fellowship: Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. (v26) In biblical times, this kind of “kiss of peace” was a greeting that people would use when they would meet people. However, the NT church, the symbol was much more than just a greeting.

    It was to symbolize unity among the members in the church. It didn’t matter what a person’s background is, now that He is in Jesus Christ – He is united to me and I am united to Him as a spiritual sibling.

    And especially with this topic on “purity”, it’s significant because it means that we no longer look at our brother or sister as spiritually superior or spiritually inferior but it levels the playing field so that we can be open, honest and repentant to our spiritual siblings about our lives and struggles. 

    6 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
    (James 5:16)

    God has graciously given us “fellowship” to help us in our spiritual growth.
  • Word: I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. (v27) You know as we read this letter in 1 Thessalonians, it is certainly a heartfelt letter to Paul’s spiritual children expressing his deep concern.

    However, it was much more than just a heartfelt letter – it is the very words of God to not just provide them with instruction on how to lead a life of purity but these words were in itself the means by which people would be made pure.

    In John 17, Jesus prays this for his disciples – 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)God’s Word is truth that purifies our hearts.

    Another favourite verse of mine is from Romans 10:17 – 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. God’s Word has the power to produce faith in our unbelieving hearts! The Spirit uses God’s Word to perform a spiritual surgery fixing and purifying our broken hearts.

    And that’s really important for us to know because it tells us that even if we are going through seasons when we are struggling spiritually, what we need to hear the most is actually the “word of God” which the Spirit will use to produce faith and call us to repentance.

If we are absolutely honest, we would probably confess that our tendency is to view sanctification as our own performance rather than trusting on God’s promise and God’s provision.

And that’s one of the root sin issues that we need to repent of. And this isn’t a modern sin issue. It finds its origin in the Garden of Eden with our ancestors Adam and Eve. God created them for purity to reflect His purity through their lives.

But they needed to trust His promise and His provision. They trusted in their own performance & broke their relationship with God. From that moment onwards all of humanity has been held captive by that lifestyle of performance.

Even our solution to the sin in our lives is:

“I’ll do better, I’ll fix what I’ve broken, I will cancel my wrongs with the good that I do, I will pray more, I will read God’s Word more, I will spend more time in the church”.

But God in His grace sent His Son Jesus to the earth, born of a Virgin & the only one in the history of humankind to live a life of perfect performance.

And then died on the cross for our sins & failed performance to fix ourselves. He rose on the third Day to freely handover his own perfect performance to those who would come and surrender their lives to Him!

And this handover of Christ performance is what purifies/sanctifies our lives. And one day this handover of Christ’s perfect performance will be complete when He returns.

This great goal is sealed by God’s gracious promise and God’s gracious provision.

So today I invite us to not just repent for the behavioural patterns of sin that we struggle with. But I would ask us to repent of our attitude of performance toward God.

Repent of the times when repentance was just our own performance resolution. Shed aside our weak and failing performance and come to the foot of the cross where our performance ends and trust in Christ’s promise and Christ’s provision today.

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

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1 Thessalonians Sermon

The Gift of Prophecy- 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21

As a church, we prefer preaching expository – going through the books of the bible, and hence since last couple of months we’ve been doing a series called ‘Abiding Faith’ and we are preaching through 1 Thessalonians.

We prefer Expository preaching because it helps us to faithfully preach through every text in the bible and address every aspect of our Christian faith that is necessary for our hearts, it also prevents us from skipping portions that we may sometimes not feel comfortable preaching, but instead gives the scriptures the authority to speak into our lives.

With that in mind, the passage that we are looking at today is 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21.

Paul is ending his letter to the Thessalonian church and in his ending remarks, he quickly seems to give some very important instructions in just one or two lines. And in our text today he is telling the church

“Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good”

We are going to talk about prophecies today. We will look at 

  • What is prophecy?
  • The purpose of prophecy.
  • And the right way to test prophecy in our current context.

A simple definition of prophecy would be “a message from God to his people” spoken by a person, typically called a Prophet.

2 Peter 1:21 gives us a little more insight on prophecy, it says

“For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit”

A prophecy therefore is a gift given by the Holy Spirt for the edification of the church, and the purpose is often to reveal the heart of God and draw us closer to Him. As a word of caution, remember, the gift of prophecy or to become a prophet is not the end goal. The end goal is Love, Love for God and love for people.

In 1 Corinthians 13:8 Paul writes

“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”

In the Old Testament, prophecies were considered very seriously, God in fact even used this gift to give indications of the coming saviour, His son Jesus to save the wretched world from sin and death.

In our passage today, when we hear Paul’s tone of voice and the choice of words regarding prophecy we get a feeling that somehow the church wasn’t taking this gift seriously, because of which Paul had to insist

“Do not despise prophecies”.

To be honest, even at Gathering we haven’t really given too much emphasis on this gift of the Spirit, maybe because we wanted to be careful on how the gifts are used within the church context in a way it glorifies God and not man, and also to protect us from been exploited by some who use these gifts without the right awareness.

But I believe, today, maybe through this text God is speaking to us and drawing our hearts consider the benefits of this gift given by the Spirit for the edification of the Church.

Therefore, since the scripture is insisting that we do not despise the gift of prophecy and that we test them and keep what is good. In this sermon, I want to share three ways we can test prophecies.

I want to position these points addressing both parties, to those who receive prophecy and also to those who think have this gift and want to use it in a way it glories God.

1.       Test prophecies against the Word of God

The first thing that prophetic utterances should be tested by is the revealed Word of God. Is the prophecy in harmony with Scripture? A prophecy you receive from the Holy Spirit for another person or a prophecy you receive from another person will never contradict the written word of God.

At the heart of all the scripture, from Genesis to Revelation is the Gospel, the story of Jesus. The story begins in the garden of Eden where God created us in his image and likeness so that he can commune with us and share the wonderful love and friendship He had with son Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

And even when our sinful heart messed up that relationship by rebelling against God, God pursued us and still pursues us through His son Jesus’s death on the cross, he justifies us, and then he sanctifies us and one day he will glorify us and take us with him in heaven.

Even though this story sounds so simple, there is so much of depth and theology that one lifetime won’t be enough to fully understand it.

But what we have to be careful is, any remarks or comments or teachings and even prophesies that violate the essence of the Gospel message should be discarded from among us.

In Galatians 1:6-8 Paul writes

6 I am astonished that you are lso quickly deserting mhim who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to na different gospel— 7 onot that there is another one, but pthere are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or qan angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, rlet him be accursed.

In the same effect, in 1 John 4:1 John tells us to test the prophets

Beloved, do not believe every Spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).

Brothers & sisters, the gift of prophecy is a wonderful gift, but if our heart is ignorant and unaware of the truths in the scripture, the devil can easily use it to misguide us and set us on a different path.

Therefore, if any of us desire to prophecy let him or her be rooted in the knowledge of the scriptures first.
At many occasions I’ve also observed that prophecies come with confirmations from the scriptures.

When I was a young Christian, I remember there were many prophecies people made over me, but the one’s that I really cherish, the one’s that stood the test are the one’s that came with a confirmation through a scripture verse.

But imagine a scenario where we don’t know the scriptures well, where our theological framework is distorted or incorrect, where we have not understood the Gospel in its entirety and one day a person comes to us and tells us ‘thus says the Lord’, on what basis will your heart confirm whether it is from the right spirit or the wrong one.

If we wish to operate in the gift of prophecy or we wish to hear God speak to us through a prophecy I suggest that we first devote ourselves in working on the right theological framework, and once that is established well, we will be able to test prophecies the way Paul is instructing the church in Thessalonica.

Some of the ways as a church we provide help is, through the preaching of the word of God, but we also have a program called Roots class where we study theology together.

Brothers & Sisters, I encourage you to invest and use these means given by the Spirit to help build a proper Gospel framework that even protect us in the area of prophecies.

2.       Test whether the prophecy points your heart to Jesus

Since the ultimate goal of every Christian is to know Christ, Christ is the ultimate reward we are aiming for.

It is wise to test whether the prophecy we receive from the Holy Spirit for another person and the prophecy you receive from another person through the Holy Spirit is ultimately pointing our heart to Jesus and His saving grace.

In John 17:3 Jesus reminds us the ultimate goal.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Paul’s ministry focus was very clear as we read in 1 Cor 2:1-2

When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you . . . . I didn’t think it was a good idea to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-2).

Understand the battle between our Self and the Spirit, one will try to push you to pursue the world and its pleasures and the other will push you pursue Christ.

The question we should ask when we want to bring a prophecy or when we receive one is whether what’s been said is pushing you towards Self or towards the Spirit, to glorify Jesus in us or whether glorify our self.

If tomorrow someone comes and tells you that God told them to tell you to pursue such and such relationship, or pursue such and such career, or go to such and such place.

The question we need to ask is whether the long-awaited relationship we’ve been asked to pursue draws us to Christ or away from Him, whether the promising career that is waiting for will enable us to grow in Christ and whether the place we are excited to go is putting Christ first in my life.

Is Jesus at the center of that prophecy, will Jesus remain the hero of our story or are we replacing Him with either ourselves or with another person.

If we fail to ask this important question then we will be easily trapped by a twisted use a gift that is actually not from the right Spirit.

I remember a prophecy that someone made over me when I was young, he told me that God has revealed that He has a great plan for my Life. And he said that if I want to see God doing great things for me, I need to follow Him and do what He asks me to do because He said the Spirit of God is revealing things about me.

The question I had to ask myself was, is Jesus at the center of it or somebody else. I thank God for giving me to courage to say no. But I know of so many people who have fallen into such trap, where they have shipwrecked their Faith and fallen into the hands of the enemy.

Brother & sisters, test the prophecies that come your way and ensure that it is ultimately leading you to fall in love with Jesus. And we are in that position only when we are saturated in the Gospel and when we are walking in the Spirit.

3.       Test prophecies against a consistent moral conduct

The last and the final point I want to make is to….

In 1 John 4:1

Beloved, do not believe every Spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).

There is also a moral test that the prophet must pass. Is the person giving the prophecy exhibiting moral character consistent with his office? Jesus warned of these false prophets

Beware of false prophets, who come in to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits (Matthew 7:15,16).

The fruit that people exhibit is the fruit of their doctrine and the fruit of their lives. Both of these must be in harmony with Gods Word. Does the prophet live a life glorifying to God? Is he in submission to the authority to Gods Word? Is he committed to a local body of Christ? Those who do not conform to Gods standards should not be regarded as prophets.

If, however, someone meets all these criteria, are we to assume that their message is supernaturally given? Not necessarily. Apart from false prophecy, there are other types of messages that may seem worthy, but are not sent directly from God. Someone can meet all these criteria and give a message believing that it was from God, yet the source can be that professed prophets own personality.

I believe the body of Christ, the church is given to us so that we can receive help in such matters.

God provides Elders, Pastors and Deacons to help guard ours hearts against wrong doctrines and against false prophets. Therefore, i believe it is always safe to filter prophecies through godly leaders God has placed over us.

As I conclude, I wish our church grows in all the gifts God has given us but let us do it in an orderly way without grieving the Lord.

With that, I hope I have given you enough insight on where the church stands with respect to the gift of prophecy and in case you have any questions pls feel free to reach out to us and we will be happy to answer your questions.

Lets pray

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

Heavenly Helper: 1 Thessalonians 5:19

Good morning!

This morning it is my privilege to bring God’s word to you.

While watching the movie Aladdin, have you ever wished or dreamt having the lamp and the genie?

I have and I’m assuming most of us had. Well, I’m here to tell you that we have access to someone, who is even greater than a genie, one who is all-powerful and all-knowing helper from heaven, the Holy Spirit.

In real life, genie doesn’t exist but the Holy Spirit does exist, unlike the genie, the Holy Spirit doesn’t grant us any wish our sinful & selfish heart desires to have, but instead carefully grants only those that bring real joy, the ones that are in accordance to God’s will for our lives, and also He is not limited to just three wishes.

Our passage today is from 1 Thessalonians 5:19 where Paul writes to the Church saying,

19 Do not quench the Spirit.

In my sermon today my goal is to point our hearts to the third person in the trinity, the Holy Spirit, and the mistakes we make when we quench or ignore Him in our spiritual walk as a Christian.

The God we worship is a triune God. There are no three God’s, there is only one God but in three forms, God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit. I won’t go into depth to explain this concept, we can do that some other day. But remember this, throughout the Bible, we see the mention of God in all three forms and with equal emphasis.

Jesus said in John 10:30
“I and the Father are one”

In John 14:9 he said
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”

2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul writes
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”

These verses and many others give us evidence of this triune God.

The thing to remember here is that the Holy Spirit is not a feeling but He is a person.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came upon God’s people only to accomplish some particular task, but in the new covenant, after Christ redeemed us from Sin and death, cleansed us from all our iniquities, and declared us righteous through the breaking of his body and shedding of His blood, a new experience has been given to you.

Before Jesus was taken into heaven he told his disciples in John 15:26“I will send you the Helper from the Father. The Helper is the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father.

And on the day of Pentecost a great transaction took place, the Spirit of God came down to dwell among us, in us, forever. And since then, everyone who receives Jesus as their personal saviour and Lord, the Spirit immediately makes our heart his dwelling place.

In Galatians 4:6 Paul writes
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

The above passage suggests that the indwelling of the Spirit in us is the evidence that we are His.

There is also no separate baptism of the Holy Spirit. What happened on the day of Pentecost was a one-time transaction from how people experienced the Holy Spirit in the Old covenant and how we will experience Him in the New covenant. If there was a separate baptism of the Holy Spirit the scripture would have taught us.

The reality is, the day we gave our lives to Jesus the Spirit of God made his dwelling in us. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 Paul reminds the church saying
16 Do you not know that you[a] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? Holy Spirit is the Heavenly Helper we receive as a gift from God on the day of our Salvation.

In our passage today, Paul is telling the church “Do not quench the Spirit”

And what we understand from this passage is that even though the Spirit lives within us there is a possibility of us quench its fire from helping us progress and grow in our Christian walk, in fact we are making a greatest blunder when we are not taking the help of our Heavenly Helper who is all-powerful and all-knowing.

In this sermon I want to point out three most important outworking of the Holy Spirit in our live that which we shouldn’t ignore or quench. Quenching the Spirit in these three areas means to STOP progressing in our Christian walk.

1. PRESENCE

One of the primary ministries of the Holy Spirit is to help us experience the Presence of God, and also take us deeper in it, enabling us to have a deep and intimate relationship with the Father. We should never quench the Holy Spirit from doing that.

In the first place, we have to remember that it was the Spirit of God that opened our eyes to the Gospel and led us to repentance from our sins and faith in Jesus.

In John 16:8-9 Jesus revealed it to us

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;

After our salvation, to continually experience the presence of God, to grow deeper in relationship with the Father, to constantly been convicted (Ehsas) of our sin, reminded of God’s Holy judgement and sacrifice of Son Jesus on the cross for our redemption. Unlike what most of us think that it is our decision and choice, the reality is that it is Spirit of God in us that does that work.

1 Corinthians 2:10-11 Paul writes

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Brothers & sisters, to live and experience the presence of God is the greatest blessing a believer can have in our spiritual walk. To experience Him as our comforter when we are in trouble, to know Him as our provider when we are in need, to know Him as our healer when we are sick, is the most fulfilling experiences to have in our Christian journey.

And all this is only made possible because of the Spirit’s work in our heart. When we isolate ourselves and close the door on God and from others, when we stop hearing from God through scripture and through His preached word, when we ignore a faithful friend who brings rebuke and correction in our lives, we are shutting the door to all the means through which the Spirit of God is bringing conviction into our hearts and drawing near to God. We shut the door to living in the PRESENCE of God, which in fact is the essence of our Christian life.

Psalms 16:11

You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Brothers & sisters, let us not quench the Holy Spirit from living and experiencing the presence of God.

2. PURPOSE

Another primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is to help us fulfil the God given purposes in our lives.

The ultimate goal of every child of God is to Glorify God by participating in His Kingdom work of redeeming His chosen people on earth who are living in darkness and to bring them into the light.

Ephesians 1:11

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

1 Peter 2:9

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

And though our purpose is one, which is to glorify God but the journey we all take are unique ones. Some are called to glorify God by becoming missionaries and pastors and evangelists, some are called to glorify God by becoming doctors, engineers, architects, film makes etc. 

And to take these unique journeys we need unique giftings, skills and talents, so that ultimately we glorify God and participate in the extension of Kingdom by proclaiming the Gospel and lifting up Jesus.

The Holy Spirit grants with a variety of gifts, from natural abilities to Spiritual ones. Most people misunderstand the Spiritual gifts, they make them their goals instead of looking at them as means to fulfil the greater goal. God gives particular gifts to particular people and we don’t control that. Just because another person has a particular gift doesn’t mean you should also have it. Yes, we do ask God for gifts but ultimately we trust in His provision for each individual, we celebrate the unique gifts he has given to us.

Brothers & sisters, it is the Spirit of God who reveals and equips us to fulfil the purposes of God in our lives.

And when we fail to give heed to the nudgings of the Spirit when He asks us to choose a certain career, move to a certain a place, not move to a certain place, give yourself up for a certain task that may sound and look foolish and unreasonable at times, we are quenching the Spirit of God from helping us fulfil God’s purposes for our lives.

Brothers & sisters, let us know quench the Spirit when He is leading us into a certain direction in our lives to fulfil God’s purposes. And how do we know whether it is the right direction to go, we will know because the road will ultimately lead to us into glorifying God and participate in His Kingdom work.

3. POWER

Yes, of course the task set ahead of us is a tough one, in our human capacities, we will never be able to complete this gigantic task. We need courage, we need self-control, we need wisdom, we need Power. The good news is that God provides us the Power we need to accomplish great things for Him.

Firstly, the Gospel comes with Power. 1 Thessalonians 1:5

because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.

The definition of Power is to have the capability to influence behaviour and events. And I believe the greatest need for Power in our life is to influence our self-destructive nature, our Self is the greatest enemy that stands between God and us. The Power we need is primarily to overcome our Self.

God wants us to seek for the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of power in our heart and life, to conquer Self and cast out sin, and to work the blessed and beautiful image of Jesus into us.

Brothers & sisters, when we fail to fully surrender every aspect of our lives into the hands of our Saviour Jesus we are quenching the Spirit of God from empowering us with His strength and His abilities. As long as we are holding on to things and controlling it the way we desire we are blocking the Spirit to take full control of the situation and allow to experience the joy of the Lord.

Let us not quench the Spirit from experiencing God’s in our Lives.

Finally, as I end, I want to bring to your attention the biggest mistake we make that eventually leads us to quenching the Spirit’s work on our lives. The mistake is our failure to Wait on Him.

We read a wonderful passage that brings immediate joy but fail to reflect on it deeply and allow the Holy Spirit to convict us because we have other things to do. We hear a great sermon but we fail to allow the spoken word to take deep roots by spending time in introspection by communing with Holy Spirit.

Friends, we have not learned enough to wait upon Him, and so we should make a solemn declaration before God; Oh God, we want to wait more for You to show us Your will.

You may ask, is it really possible to experience life with the Holy Spirit and clearly hear Him speak and guide me in my day-to-day life. The answer is “Yes, it is possible to those who are in right fellowship with Heaven, and who understands the art of waiting upon God in prayer”

Psalms 27:14 David encourages to wait on the Lord saying

Wait for the Lord;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
    wait for the Lord!

Lamentations 3:25

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
    to the soul who seeks him.

Isaiah 40:31

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.

Brothers & sisters, what would it means for you to wait on the HolySpirit every day of your life.

What would it mean to wait on the Lord once every week, maybe in fasting in prayer so you can align your years to the great comforter and helper.

What would it mean to take a break, in a month from work and ministry, maybe for a couple of days to separate yourself to fully focus your heart on God and allow the Spirit of God to experience the presence of God, guide you in the purposes of God and equip you the Power of God, so you can fully live for the Glory of God.

I’m leaving this to you to answer, and hope you will take out time and think deeply about these things.

Let’s pray.

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

Do Not Quench the Spirit – 1 Thessalonian 5:19

Good morning Beloved church, it is truly a joy and privilege to see all of you. Thank you so much for taking out your time, I pray that God will truly bless all us as we spent time together worshipping God and listening to His words.


Today we shall continue our book study from Thessalonians, our text for today is 1 Thessalonian 5:19.


“Do not quench the Spirit” this is our text for this morning.


The root word for “quench” which means “to extinguish,” “to put out” or “to go out.” It also refer to putting out fires, sparks, or the putting out a lamp.


Church the day we repent our sins and received Christ as our Lord and saviour; The bible says Holy Spirit sealed us and He permanently dwells in us and He is working in our heart like a burning fire.


Knowing the works of Holy Spirit Apostle Paul Urge Thessalonian church that they should not Quench the Holy Spirit. This text is reminding all of us too that we should not quench the Holy Spirit.

To understand the text, “Do not quench the Spirit”, we shall ask four important questions.

  1. Who is the Holy Spirit?
  2. What are the works of the Holy Spirit?
  3. How believers may quench the Holy Spirit?
  4. What are the consequences of Quenching the Holy Spirit?
  5. Who is the Holy Spirit?

There are many misconceptions about the identity of the Holy Spirit. Some view the Holy Spirit as a mystical force or power.

Others understand the Holy Spirit as the impersonal power that God makes available to followers of Christ. These are wrong.

The truth is The Holy Spirit is co-equal with God the Father and God the Son and is of the same essence. Yet He is also distinct from them.

1. Who is the Holy Spirit?

  1. Holy Spirit is a person (He is the third person of Trinity).

Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, a being with a mind, emotions, and a will.

Holy Spirit thinks and knows (1 Cor.2:10).
Holy Spirit can be grieved (Ephesian 4:30)
Holy Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:26-27).
He makes decisions according to His will (1Cor 12:7-11).

2. Holy Spirit is God.

The Bible declares that the Holy Spirit is God. we know that the Holy Spirit is God because He possesses the characteristics of God.

For example, His omnipresence is seen in Psalm 139:7-8

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

Isaiah 11:2, the prophet describes the Holy Spirit this way. He says,

“He is the Spirit of the Lord, He is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.”

2. What are the works of Holy Spirit?

a. Holy Spirit draws the unsaved sinner to Jesus.

Holy Spirit plays a primary role in transforming a person’s heart and bringing salvation to the individual.

It is the Spirit who brings conviction to the unbeliever and causes him to see the truth of the gospel in a clear light.

Those who respond to this conviction and place their faith in Jesus Christ receive eternal life and a new nature.

Holy Spirit unites the believer with Christ and places him in the body of Christ, the church.

He also unites the believer with Christ in His death, enabling him to live victoriously over sin.

Application:

As a church, our Primary role is to keep praying for the lost soul for their salvation and keep spreading the good news of Christ to all people around us.

b. Holy Spirit regenerates our human Spirits.

Regeneration which means The radical spiritual change in which God brings an individual from a condition of spiritual defeat and death to a renewed condition of holiness and life.


Titus 3: 5 says.
5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit moves an unbeliever and regenerate their heart to repentance and leads them into eternal salvation through Jesus Christ.

c. Holy Spirit Convict both unbelievers and believers.

John14:8.
8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment


An unbeliever cannot get saved unless they are first convicted by the Holy Spirit. It is through the work of Holy Spirit our sins were convict and we repent and turn our heart to the Lord.

For born-again believers, we all need the conviction of the Holy Spirit. so we can be shown the errors of our ways.

d.Holy Spirit sanctifies us in the Lord.

2 Thess.2:13.
13 But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

Once you get saved and born again in the Lord, God starts to sanctify you and me, what He will do is consecrate and set us apart unto Himself. From there, He will want to transform us by the renewing of our mind, He will want to transform us into the image of His Son Jesus.

e. Holy Spirit helps us with our prayer life.

Romans 8:26.
In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Another major powerful ministry that the Holy Spirit has with each born-again believer is to help us with our prayer life with the Lord.

f. Holy Spirit guides us into all truth.

John 16:13.
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.


He is our guide


g. Holy Spirit teaches us all things.


John14:26
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

He is our Teacher.

The Holy Spirit is doing an incredible by Illuminating the scriptures to all of us; bringing you and me into intimacy with God; showing all of us the glory of Jesus Christ, guiding you and me into God’s will; strengthening you and me for spiritual ministry, and service.

Holy Spirit purifies us, sanctifies us, cleanses us from all the pollution of sins toward the image of Jesus Christ.

3. How believers may quench the Holy Spirit?

By Neglecting the gift of Holy Spirit.

If we neglect the gift of Spirit, we will quench the Holy Spirit.


1 Timothy 4:14

Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

Illustration:
In Old testament there a prophet call Jonah, God told Jonah to go and warn and preach to the people of Nineveh for their wicked life.

But Jonah was afraid of Nineveh people and he ran away from his duty, God caught him in the middle of the sea, he was trying to escape to Tarsus, his sin was found, he was thrown in the ocean and the whale swallow him.

He was in a whale belly for 3 days God allowed him to live again. Remember church if we try to neglect our duty and responsibility and try to run away like Jonah, we will quench Holy Spirit. We should not stop the work of Holy Spirit in our life.


Application:
Let us not be like Jonah. (let us not run away from the task and the purpose God has given us in our life).


1 Cor.15:59 says,
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

By Disobedience to the word of God and living an unrepented life. How do we Disobey to the word of God?


by not reading the word of God,
by not applying the word of God, by living prayerless life,
by living an unfruitful life. By being worry and anxiety,
by not growing spiritually. by depending on our self and not God.
By being proud and not humble.

After living a sinful life, and when we do not repent our sins to God, our unrepented heart will quench the Holy Spirit.


Application:
Are you quenching the Holy Spirit by living a disobedient and unrepented life. If we are displeasing God lets repent our sinful behavior to God.


1 John 1:9 says,
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

  1. By being worldliness and living a life devoted to self and selfish hopes.
    Bible directly confront us in 1 John 2:15-16.
    1 John 2:15-16
    Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16For everything in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-comes not from the Father but from the world.

    If your,
    1.vision in life,
    2. your wildest dream in life,
    3. your career and
    4. the things you are running after in life,

    if all these things are alien to God’s will. You are going toward the wrong direction in life, your selfish ambition and your hope and your self-desire will Quench the Holy Spirit.

Application:
How are you maintaining life?

Loving God, serving God, worshipping God is controlling your life or
Worldliness, living a life devoted to self-desires and self-hope is controlling your life.

You know exactly where your heart is.

Scriptures is warning you and me in Romans 12:1-2 saying,

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

4. What are the consequences of quenching the Holy Spirit?

First Consequence…
1.God will not use us anymore.
We have great lesson from the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-5. They Backslide from living God and God is warning them. Verse 2.

2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.
5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.


God will never use us if we are habitually living in sin, a warning to Ephesian church is a great warning for all of us, they are working hard for God, they have perseverance, they didn’t tolerate wicked people, they know the false teachers, they endure hardship and working so hard for God.

But they have forsaken the first love. Means Jesus is not no.1 in their life, some other things have replaced their priority in life.


God is warning them to come back, if not He will remove lampstand which the spiritual gift in their life.


If God take away His spiritual gift, we will not be useful for God’s Kingdom. Our life will be useless and inactive.

Your life will be like a nice smartphone. Looks cool outside but did not work. What you will do with that kind of phone.


2.We shall sin both against God and our own souls.

When we quench the Holy Spirit, we sin against God and we sin to our own soul.

3.We will not bear the fruit of Holy Spirit.


God want us to bear the fruit of Spirit in our life.

Galatian 5:22-23.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

4.We will make the Holy Spirit grieve.


Ephesians 4:30:

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

Conclusion:


Church we have mediatated together four questions under the topic
“Do not quench the Holy Spirit”

  1. Who is the Holy Spirit? (remember Holy Spirit is a person and Holy Spirit is God).
  2. What are the Works of the Holy Spirit?
  3. How believers may Quench the Holy Spirit?
  4. What are the consequences of quenching the Holy Spirit?

Beloved church we should never quench the holy Spirit, this is a command from the scripture. Rather


1.We should lovingly allow the Holy Spirit to totally control our heart.
2.We should willingly allow the Holy Spirit to fill our heart.
3.We should bear fruits of Holy Spirit in our everyday life.
4.We should always walk in the Spirit.


May the Sweet Holy Spirit Guide you and teach you in every area of your life.


May the power of Holy Spirit be with you to fight and defeat all the power of Darkness.


May He empower you, equip you and use you to be a channel of blessing for all people.

May the fruit of Spirit, love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control flow out of your life and bring glory to our heavenly Father.

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

Can we misunderstand prayer? – 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18

Good morning church! My name is Jinson Thomas and I’m thankful to God for this opportunity to share God’s Word with you this morning.


I hope our time today would be an encouragement in your faith. If someone would’ve told me at the start of this year concerning all the events that I was going to witness in 2020, I wouldn’t have believed it!



A pandemic that would ravage the entire globe causing 6.4 million people to be infected & 3.8 Lac deaths!!! Our state alone has recorded the highest number of cases (80,000 approx.) in the country and we have been in lockdown for 11 weeks now affecting people’s livelihoods & causing tremendous hardships for those who relied on daily wages.

People who are on salaried jobs are forced to take pay cuts or unfortunately even being laid off. It is a painful and difficult time. On top of that our country has witnessed 2 cyclones & even an attack from the locusts on our fields in the past month!

In terms of national security – there is trouble brewing on the border with China. I say this not to harp on discouraging news but rather to acknowledge that we stand here today at the backdrop of unimaginable fear and anxiety.

And we can sense this all around us – be it at our workplaces or in our schools or on the news, or on social media or in our neighbourhoods or even in the innermost places of our hearts. And what I believe today’s passage is telling us is that God has given us a wonderful & powerful tool called “prayer” but yet it’s something that is so easily misunderstood.  We misunderstand the purpose of “prayer” when we make it out to be something that it was never designed to be. 

What is the true purpose of prayer then? I’d ask you to look with me at our main text –

1 Thess 5:17-18:

17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

4 observations on prayer & thanksgiving:-

1. Prayer is not about performance but about trust (v17)

17 pray without ceasing

In other words, “Uninterrupted, incessant, continuous prayers”. When we hear this instruction “pray without ceasing”, what naturally goes through our mind? If I’m not wrong, many of us automatically think about it in terms of “performance”.

We think Paul is talking about “unceasing prayer” so that would mean “uninterrupted prayer 24/7 or praying during every waking moment” and then we try to measure ourselves against that standard on the basis of the time we’ve spent in prayer.

When we think on this performance mentality, we pat ourselves on the back and “feel more accepted and loved” by God on days when we’ve spent more time in prayer. On the other hand, on days when we’ve spent little time or neglected prayer, we feel “unloved and unaccepted” by God. And the man-made solution we come up with is “I need to pray more to be loved and accepted by God”.

I love the way Jerry Bridges puts it – he says “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace”.

In other words, it’s not our “prayer performance” that makes God love and accept us, it’s God’s grace (God’s unmerited gift) that He has poured on us through His Son Jesus Christ. Okay, you may ask – so if we don’t pray to perform before God (to gain some brownie points), then why do we pray?

We pray because we exhibit our trust in God through prayer. We basically echo that God is strong and powerful and I’m not. I am in desperate need of God’s help. It’s not about performance but about trust.

I think this principle is illustrated beautifully in one of my favorite parables from the Bible – the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Both of them go to the temple to pray.

The Pharisee (super religious Jew) sees prayer as a means of performing before God. During his prayer, he keeps bragging about him not being as bad as the robbers, the evildoers, adulterers and even the tax collector who is standing behind him. Not just that he then adds that he fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all that he gets.

At the same time, the tax collector (in those days were known as dishonest and wicked people) stood at a distance and wouldn’t even look up to heaven. Out of his sorrow due to this sin, he beats his chest and says “God have mercy on me a sinner”. He has nothing to brag about. All he is holding on is the “mercy of God”.

It’s interesting that Jesus ends the parable by the saying that the tax collected went home justified. God answered his prayer because it exhibited trust in Him. The Pharisee’s prayer since it relied on his own performance had no trust in God.

Therefore, I want us to realize that when Scripture tells us to “pray without ceasing”, its objective is not to push us to performance but rather to trust God in prayer with all the areas of our lives.

Just like the tax collector’s posture, we come to God humbly in prayer desperately asking God for help in our relationship with Him (we don’t want to be cold or lukewarm but growing in our love for Him), ask God for help to be pure for Him (we need His help to fight sin), ask God to help us with our work (the tasks, meetings and responsibilities for the day), ask Him to help us in our marriages, if we are single where we ask Him to prepare us for marriage & help us be faithful in this stage of waiting, in this time of uncertainty where we desperately ask God for wisdom, provision and protection.

God is glorified when His creatures trust Him. He didn’t create us to be self-sufficient. He created us to be dependent on Him & therefore prayer a wonderfully powerful tool that God has given us to trust Him.

2. Prayer means that we have unlimited access to God (v17)

The other thing we realize about “praying without ceasing” is that it means that there is no limit to the number of times I can communicate with God. Many of us who have had some experience of working or being part of a hierarchical organization know that the larger the organization is, the harder it is to get connected with the CEO or super boss of the organization if you are a regular employee.

In order to approach the CEO or have an interaction with him, you would probably need to go through multiple managers and heads & then get their approval to get a few minutes with him. And even if there is a rare opportunity to meet with the CEO, it’s quite likely that the next interaction will take a while.

Unlike this case where the CEO is distant and disconnected from regular employees, the amazing truth of the gospel is that every believer has unlimited access to God who is the Creator of the entire universe!

There’s no restriction on the access. There’s no red tape. There’s no certain set of formalities or approval required. That is actually a humbling yet exciting truth!

The other assumption for “unceasing prayer” is that we as believers can be confident to go back to God again and again because God will respond and answer our prayers.

Although God’s answer might not always be what we desire or expect because we think temporarily but God thinks eternally of how we can be shaped into Jesus fully, but yet God always answers!

Another favorite parable of mine is the parable of “the persistent widow”. There was a town in which there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. No moral standards & no compassion and care towards fellow humans – not a great candidate to be a judge.

And there was a widow (oppressed and poor probably) who kept coming to him asking him to grant her justice. Now he kept putting her off but after a while he yielded to giving her justice because he didn’t want to be bothered anymore.

And Jesus uses this lesser to great argument. “If this unjust judge was able to grant justice to the widow, do you think God neglect the chosen ones who cry out to him night and day? I tell you, he will see that they get justice quickly.”

How awesome this is? To know that we have God who never denies us access to Himself & also to know that He earnestly desires & delights in answering our prayers.

3.  Prayer and Thanksgiving is not based on our circumstances

18a give thanks in all circumstances

Thanksgiving means expressing gratefulness. What we see in v18 is that thanksgiving was never meant to be a seasonal activity. It was never intended to be the case where we only thank God when things go well and cease from thanking God during times of pain and difficulty.

Well, you might say – it was easier for the Thessalonian church because they weren’t facing the same troubles or stress that I’m going through right now!

However, when we look at this young Thessalonian church probably a few months old at this stage, we see them as a church not birthed in prosperity but in persecution. They were extremely unpopular and falsely accused of revolting against Caesar by following “another king Jesus”.

Paul who was with their spiritual father & strong support wasn’t present with them because he was driven out of the city by these same persecutors. Think about it – each day remained to be a risk for them ever since they followed Jesus.

With the unpopularity they faced, they too faced a very uncertain future. And in the midst of all that was happening to them, Paul tells them to give thanks in all circumstances! Why does Paul tell them that?

Because what the Thessalonian church and what we need to hear the most in our toughest of times is not optimistic advice but we need to grasp a picture of “Who God is & what He has done for us”!

We need to know how big, strong, compassionate, wise, loving, patient, faithful to His promises, in full control of destiny He is. And that happens through “thanksgiving and remembering”. 

As a church in our daily readings we have been going through Deuteronomy and in that I’ve been encouraged to see the numerous times God reminds the Israelites of the time when they were slaves in Egypt and how God brought them out with an outstretched arm.

And these reminders were not to guilt the Israelites or manipulate them. These reminders were given so that they could thank God for what He has done for them and also remind them that He is more than able to fulfill all the remaining promises He made to them.

It could be a gospel song, it could be your own testimony that you remind your own heart about (how God totally transformed your life) or it could be by placing visual reminders of God’s promises in front of you or maybe journaling God’s faithfulness.

There are a variety of things you can do to bring to remembrance and lead your heart to thanksgiving.

4.  Thanksgiving and prayer is a command and an invitation from God

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (v18b)

Do you want to know the will of God? God’s will for us is that we pray unceasingly and thank God in all circumstances! When we look at the word “will” in the Greek – it means a decree or command that’s being made by the highest authority.

But the word “will” also means “pleasure & intention” – which also tells us that God doesn’t want us to perform “prayers and thanksgiving” out of mere obligation but rather He intends that we do it in the context of a relationship with Him!   

I love that phrase “in Christ Jesus for you” because it reminds us that the basis of our relationship with God is because of Jesus Christ. In the beginning, God created us for a relationship with Him – to know Him, love Him and live for Him. But we willingly chose to go our own way running away from our Father toward our own pleasures & desires.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way (Isa 53:6) Like lost son or daughter, we found ourselves stuck in our own deep & dark pit of sin. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23). We tried several attempts to fix the problem and get us out of the pit of sin but each time we fell back in again.

We thought our good works, righteous deeds & number of prayers would be sufficient to save us but none of that could fix our broken lives. When we were dying in that pit, our Father came looking for us and seeing us dying there He came to rescue us. His rescue mission involved giving up His one and only pure Son on the cross to pay for our rebellion and our sins.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus Christ was buried and on the third Day He rose victoriously from the grave so that by trusting in Him we can not only be rescued from the deadly pit of sin but have a restored relationship with the Father forever.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (John 1:12).

That’s so amazing that through Christ we are no longer enemies and slaves but are now children of God! Now through Jesus Christ, in our prayers we relate to the Father as “Abba Father” & as our “Papa”.

One verse that always stood out to me was Matt 6:7:  7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Why would the Father want us to pray even though He knows what we need even before I ask him?

It’s because our prayers and thanksgiving are not to be viewed like a vending machine or as a burdensome command to obey. The primary purpose for prayer is not merely to get what we want but to know God intimately. It’s as though God is telling us – Son / Daughter, prayer is an invitation for you to grow in your relationship with me.

Undoubtedly this season in life could be one of most difficult times for us. But God has given us a powerful tool to call for divine help through prayer! But that means that we would need to set aside our misunderstandings & baggage regarding prayer. What I’d ask us all to do now is to spend a few moments repenting to God regarding the misunderstandings and what we have made prayer out to be.

1. Repenting to God for making prayer about a performance rather than trusting Him will the areas of our life

2. Repenting for unbelief – Repenting for not believing that God is a good God who will answer our prayers

3. Repenting for forgetting Who God is and What He is able to do. Ask God to give us a heart of thankfulness that is not dependent on our circumstances

4. Repenting for making prayer out to be a burden by not seeing it as an invitation to grow in a relationship

And in faith trust in God’s forgiveness in Christ and ask God for grace to revive our prayer lives and make it what God intended prayer to be.

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

Breaking the barriers to Prayer & Thanksgiving- 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18

The subject we are looking at is Prayer & Thanksgiving; the passage we’re referring to is 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18.

“.. pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Brothers & sisters, If we are honest, we will all admit that prayer & thanksgiving are the most challenges Christian discipline. It is often not what and how I need to pray and thank God for, the most challenging part I believe, is to make up our mind to pray.

Public prayer isn’t that hard, but it’s our private prayer life that looks dry and lifeless at times.

In this sermon, I don’t want to teach you how to pray and thank God for, but I want to address the issue of what stops us from making up our mind to go before God and pray unceasingly every day. Therefore, I’ve name sermon title as “Breaking the barriers to Prayer & Thanksgiving”

I want to bring to your attention two reasons why we fail to practice a regular prayer life and offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

1. A wrong perspective of God.

As humans, we often learn and make assumptions about our surroundings, about the people in our lives and even God based on our human instincts and experiences. Sadly, we also form opinions about God based on our human understanding. 

When we think of going to Him in prayer, we think ….

  • He is angry at me because of my repeated sin patterns and habits
  • He gets irritated when I bothered Him by approaching him with my life.

All the above responses and thoughts flow out of a guilty heart.

As long as we have such perceptions about God, we will never be able to see a breakthrough in our prayer life, and we never be able to offer thanksgiving in all circumstances.

Why are the observations we make about God wrong? Well, it because God’s nature is not the nature of human beings; neither does his emotions fluctuate as the emotions of human beings. His yes is yes and no is no. What comes out of His mouth is sealed forever, and He never goes back on it.

To encourage your hearts to often go to God in prayer, here’s two perceptions we need to cultivate about God.

a. As a child of God, there is an open invitation for us to enter into his presence with our prayer & supplications anytime and anywhere.

And here’s what God says in Isaiah 55:1-3

“Come, everyone who thirsts,

    come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without price.

2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

    and delight yourselves in rich food.

3 Incline your ear, and come to me;

    hear, that your soul may live;

and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

    my steadfast, sure love for David.

This invitation is for all us who’ve repented of our sins and have trust in son Jesus.

Yes, it is true that once upon a time, God was angry with us. He was out to destroy us by throwing us into the fire of hell because of our sinful rebellion against Him. We lived lives as though God did not exist, we disobey Him, disrespected Him, hated Him. But the Bible says God in return chose to love us, that while we were sinners, He sent His only son Jesus to die for us and redeem us back to himself.

Epesians 1:7 says 7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace”

God offers a free invitation into his presence for anything in life is because Jesus made way for us.

Hebrews 10:19, 22 says 19 “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”

Because of Jesus, God has already declared us righteous; his heart towards us is of a loving and pampering Father.

And therefore, whenever we want to approach Him in prayer and thanksgiving, we should never hesitate to do so with full confidence in His steadfast Love expressed through his son Jesus. 

The second perception we need to form about God in our heart which will encourage us to approach him in prayer is …

b. He is a God who pays attention to our every request, prayer and always accepts our sacrifice of thanksgiving.

Pslams 69:33
For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.”

Proverbs 15:29 
The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.”

God also appreciates when we go to him again and again in prayer, even when we go with the same prayer requests multiple times.

Luke 18:1-8 Jesus tells us a story

“2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterwards he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Brother & sisters, our God hears our prayer, the only condition he has is that when we pray, we pray with faith and without doubt in our hearts. If our prayer is a prayer of faith, then he will hear us and answer us according to His sovereign will. 

2. A false dependence on our Self

Another big obstacle in our way to go to God in prayer and offer thanksgiving is “A false dependence on our Self”.

Listen to one of the parable of Jesus in Luke 12:16-21

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”‘ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Friends, knowingly or unknowingly, often we think to ourselves that life is in our control, why because we look at our education and think to ourselves that I am well qualified to get any job whenever and wherever I want. We can look at the money and possession we own and think to ourselves, I am well supplied and therefore I can take care our myself and my family. We can look at our youthfulness and think to ourselves, I am strong enough to take challenges and achieve whatever I want in life.

But brothers & sisters, we often forget that life is more than these things we possess, what we think is in our control is just a fraction of things that help us survive in this world. There are spiritual realities in life that we are totally blinded to.

Our life ultimately is in God’s hand, and it is his mercy and grace that sustains us every single day of our lives. Therefore, let us throw away the confidence we have on ourselves and lean on God who is in control of all things.

Prayer is the means through which we express our dependence on him and his saving grace, giving thanks to God in all circumstances shows that our delight is in his son Jesus and on nothing else in this world.

And that is why Paul is writing to the church “.. pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Therefore, brothers & sisters, let us develop a lifestyle of prayer and thanksgiving to God, knowing he is a loving, gracious & pampering Father who loves me and accepts me the way I am, even though he knows my past, present and future sins, he loving embraces us in his arms. Not only that but just like a sweet and loving Father, he even gives us a listening ear.

Let us also throw away our attitude of self-dependence, and approach God with even the silliest requests in our heart just how a child would do. It is not what we ask that matter to God, but how we pray that matters. God may not give you everything you ask for, but he will grant the desires of your heart that will help us nearer to him.

Let us pray.

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

Rejoice Always!- 1 Thessalonians 5:16

The passage we will be looking at today is 1 Thessalonians 5:16 and the verse simply says

“Rejoice Always”

1 Thessalonians 5:16

Always Rejoice – meaning to feel or show great joy or delight…. Always

At this point you must be thinking, that’s absolutely impossible.

How can someone rejoice always?

I can rejoice sometimes, but definitely not always.

Why?

You might say…

“Because life is tough.”

“You don’t know what I’ve gone through in the past, I’m still dealing with it”

“You don’t know what I am going through right now, its unbearable sometimes”

“My job is the worst job in the world, during this lockdown they make me work like a donkey”

“My company is least caring, they asked me to sit at home without paying a penny.”

“My marriage is breaking apart, we are struggling”

“My education is at a standstill, I don’t know when I will finish my course and get a job, I don’t even know if I will get a job”

” In such a circumstance, if God is expecting me to Rejoice, that too not sometimes but always, how is that even possible? “

“It’s easy for Paul to write that, and it’s easy for Saju to say that, but they don’t know what I’m going through. My present circumstances are so tough that even thinking about Rejoicing in any manner is absolutely impossible.”

Brothers & sisters, if those are the thoughts running through your mind when you read today’s passage, or maybe I brought it out and reminded you of your hard life.

In this sermon, I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts to ponder upon which I believe will help you see the possibility of choosing to Rejoice Always.

I believe it is possible, I’ve met people in real life who I’ve seen rejoicing in the Lord at all times.

I’ve read stories of missionaries and martyrs who’ve endured suffering, sickness, pain and even death with everlasting joy in their heart. I’ve heard of men lying on their death beds and yet rejoicing in their heart.

This morning, instead of giving you long statements as pointers to remember, I want to give you three words to ponder upon.

1. The first word is PERSPECTIVE

Perspective means to have a point of view, to have a particular attitude towards or way of thinking regarding our present hard circumstances, since most of the time it is our present suffering and pain that is the greatest hurdle for us to rejoice always.

Here’s the perspective we need to cultivate regarding the context of the passage we just read. If we think our situation is the worst then I want us to look and ponder what’s going on with Paul and the Thessalonian church.

Paul is not writing to a church located in a city like us where the Christians have the freedom to practise their beliefs, where they are allowed to worship in open spaces and have the liberty to openly speak about Christ on an online public platform like Facebook or YouTube, where life is tough but not to the extent where believers are dragged out of their houses and killed and murdered for their faith in Jesus.

Instead, he is writing to a group of Christians who are being tortured, persecuted & killed by the worst punishment they could think of.

On the other hand, Paul is not writing this letter sitting on a beautiful balcony or a beachside hotel with a nice cool breeze hitting his face, but he is writing the letter from Corinth where he is labouring for the Gospel alongside Aquila and Pricilla, as was his ministry in other places.

I suppose he was making and repairing tents to protect the people from the hot Mediterranean sun and also preaching the Gospel, discipling the people and building the church, risking his life by putting himself in a dangerous position with Romans.

Even after Paul writing them to “Rejoice Always”, their circumstances are not going to get better, history tells us that some of them are going to be brutally killed and murdered for their faith in Jesus.

And yet he is writing to the church “Rejoice Always”.

Brothers & sisters, if we are waiting and hoping for our circumstances to look better so that we can rejoice always then that is not going to happen. The two reasons it won’t happen is firstly because as long as we are living on this earth we are living in a world that is broken and tarred by Sin.

When God created the world he did not mean to create it this way. The Bible tells us that he made it beautiful and meant it for good.

When he made the first man and woman, he wanted them to enjoy and be fruitful under the authority & dominion of His Majesty, primarily by walking in obedience to God’s instructions in humility and in complete surrender. But instead of walking in obedience, Adam & Eve disobeyed God and sinned in their hearts.

Romans 5:12 says

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”.

Romans 5:12

Because of our sins, the Bible says God’s righteous judgement is upon this earth. Here’s how Isaiah describes the effects of Sin on the earth in Isaiah 24:5

The earth is polluted by its inhabitants, because they have transgressed laws, violated statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live on it suffer the punishment of their guilt. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned [under the curse of God’s wrath]

Isaiah 24:5-6

Brothers & sisters, as long as we live on this earth we are living under the curse that is upon this earth, and even though our spirit and soul is liberated in Christ.

Our body here on earth will continue to experience the pain of this broken world. We will always be walking on broken glasses under our feet as long as we live on this earth.

Even Jesus, being the perfect man who ever lived on the earth had to suffer and experience the effect of this broken world in a much more brutal way than any of us will ever suffer.

The second perspective I want us to have about our present circumstances is that God uses our sufferings to perfect us and make us mature in Him.

Do you know that our saviour Jesus was made perfect through sufferings. In Hebrews 5:8-9 it says

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him”

Hebrews 5:8-9

Brothers & Sisters, I urge you to look at your present pain & sufferings as a means by which God is perfecting you in Christ.

And if you can develop a right perspective towards your present circumstances then ‘rejoicing always’ can definitely look like a possibility.

2. The second word is BELIEVE

As we just learnt that it is not our present circumstances that enables us to Rejoice always, but what should rather enable us to rejoice always is the prospects of the eternal life we have in heaven because of what Jesus did for us.

Even though we sinned and rebelled against God, instead of pouring His wrath on us and destroying our existence forever, our loving, gracious and merciful Father sent Jesus to bear our punishment and die for our sake and declare justice over us.

Isaiah 53:6 says,

“The Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him,”

Hebrews 9:26 says,

“He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

Hebrews 2:17 says that Christ made “propitiation for the sins of the people” and 1 John 4:10 says “in this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Brothers & sisters, we rejoice in the fact that Jesus died for our sins and has reunited our broken hearts with our Heavenly Father once and forever.

And we receive this gift and stand justified when we repent of our sins and put our faith in Christ our saviour.

Therefore friends, if we are failing today to rejoice always in the Lord, it is not because of our circumstances but because of UNBELIEF in our heart.

Unbelief is the root cause of all our habitual sins, troubles and lack of joy. We are failing to believe that God’s grace, mercy and love expressed through the sacrifice of his Son is enough.

In Isaiah 45:22 the Lord says,

“Look to me and be saved”

Isaiah 53:6

Instead of looking at the Son, Jesus, we are all the time looking at ourselves and our circumstances, we are trying to make our life look better on our strength and ability so that we can someday arrive at the destination we have planned where we will find fulfilment and our joy will be complete.

We work hard, put in extra hours in office, slog and break our bones.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that its wrong to work hard. In fact, God’s word clearly says that we should and that work is a gift. But our attitude is what matters.

Thinking that our efforts is what will sustain us and looking for joy apart from Christ is what is harmful.

We do good works, sometimes beyond our capacities and hope & expect that God will return the favour someday in hundredfold and then we will be happy.

Instead, what we ought to be doing is looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our Faith, trust in him and not in our strength and ability to make this imperfect life on earth perfect.

In Christ, we are totally 100% perfect for heaven, and that is what should make us rejoice always.

Brothers & sisters, as long as we nurture UNBELIEF in our hearts with regards to struggles, trials & temptations we go through in life, we will never be able to truly Rejoice always.

As long as we live on this earth, we need to live believing that his grace is sufficient for us, sufficient to justify us, to sanctify us, and take us to heaven with him.

Allow your heart to be filled with that Joy.

3. The last and the final word I want to leave with you is REST.

Now, that we have the right PERSPECTIVE and BELIEF, I want us to think of the word REST.

Rest, not just as a state of mind, where we are resting in God’s sovereignty over our lives, his provision of abundant and sufficient grace for us to live joyfully in his presence. But I want to talk about REST which is also a command from the Lord – The Sabbath Rest.

Sabbath rest is not just a suggestion from God, its a Holy command from Him.

It is as important as “Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul”, It is one of the 10 commandments God gave to Moses, Exodus 20:8-11 God said

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,

10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

To obey the Sabbath literally means to cease from all our human efforts and to look to God in prayer and devotion. As I understand the Sabbath, I’ve come to believe that Sabbath rest is the providence from God, not just for the sake of physical rest, but also to help us realign our perspectives and refocus our belief on Him.

When we take rest from our human efforts we are reaffirming the fact that in God we trust, as our ultimate source of provision, peace and joy.

If you are struggling to Rejoice at the moment, I want to ask when was the last time you rested in God from all your strivings and efforts and hard work.

I know it is difficult and there are many excuses we can think of, our work responsibilities, our family commitments, etc.

But if working on our perspectives and dealing with our unbelief is important for us so that we can Rejoice always, we will have to give importance to the Sabbath rest, for some of you, it might require you to take drastic steps to say NO to extra work, maybe close yourself up in a room, maybe disconnect the phone for the day, say to NO to entertainment, etc.

A Restful heart will always be a joy-full heart.

Even in our busy schedules if we can find ways to soak ourself in scripture, devote ourself in prayer, sing songs of hope and thanksgiving, remembering the Gospel, looking at Jesus, resting in Him, then, brothers and sisters, the joy of the Lord will surely fill our hearts and keep us going.

We can become just like a small child who runs along the riverside with a stick in his hand and laughter in his mouth.

Though there is so much more I want to say but time is limited, I hope I have stirred something in your heart this morning and given you enough reasons to Rejoice always.

Please do remember the three words .. PERSPECTIVE, BELIEVE & REST.

Let’s pray.

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

Growing Together in the Lord – 1 Thessalonians 5:14-15

Hello church Good morning, I am delighted to connect you, and I am thankful for this opportunity to share the word of God this morning.

As the world is go through horrible pandemic, I pray that this pandemic will not hinder us to grow spiritually in the Lord rather let us fully seek God and fully depend on His divine protection upon ourselves and our family.

Today we shall continue our book study series from 1 Thessalonians 5:14-15.

14 We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

15 See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always pursue after that which is good for one another and for all people.

Pray: Lord we thank you for this beautiful opportunity to mediate your word, we invite your Holy Spirit to come and teach us.

Help us to understand the truth. In Jesus precious name. Amen.

Let us remember the condition of Thessalonian believers:

They were Idol worshipper – but as soon as they heard the gospel,

They repent and they turn away from idol to serve the true Living God.

# They have great faith in the Lord. # They are greatly laboring in love.

# They have steadfastness of Hope.

On the Top of these, they became a great example for all people.

Their practical faith has gone viral to many parts of the world.

All people heard about this amazing Thessalonian church.

But when we read chapter 5:14-15, we see the need of the Thessalonian church, the area where they need to grow.

Remember there is no perfect church in this world, we always need to repent our sins and keep sanctifying before God,

we need God’s grace daily to grow in the Lord.

Someone says like this,

“A Church is a hospital for sinners not a club for saints.”

Its true the church is a hospital for sinners,

Church I will like to remind all of us, that God Love us so much that He sent His only son Jesus Christ, He came into this world, He took the punishment in place of us and He purchased us with His blood, As we believed Him as saviour and Lord, He cleansed us from all sins and unrighteousness.

Now as a new creation in Christ, He wants us to serve Him and keep growing in the Lord.

I would like to entitle my sermon as “Growing together in the Lord”

Let us come to the first point.

1. Admonish the unruly. (14a)

          “We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly.” (14a)

The word Urge (is a verb) which means begging, beseeching, pleading, requesting. (this is not forcing something rather a humble request) he urged the brethren to admonish the unruly.

Brethren – fellow Christian, member of the same church community.

Admonish: (Nou-thet-ei-te) is a verb and when we see Greek grammar, It is in present imperative. That means to admonish is a command.

Admonish means to warn, counsel, exhort. to put in mind,

To warn or to give notice beforehand especially of danger or evil.

Illustration

Recently, it was on May 8, 16 migrant worker were sleeping in a railway track, unfortunately, train ran over them and all of them died instantly. It is sad to hear that.

I know if you know well ahead that the train is coming toward them, you will warn them to get out of the railway track, to save those workers. Right.

Church We are to warn, counsel, exhort one another, to those friends who are going toward the wrong direction in life.

Unruly: At-ak-tos: when we see original meaning in Greek it means,

Out of order, who are out of line, the undisciplined, the disorderly people, Lazy, idle people.

Illustration: I know one brother, he is a married man, incredibly good in singing and he was highly active in a church. He has 6 children.

But he backslides from his faith, he became lazy, he ran away from his role and responsibility as a father, he was going from one place to another, did not return home for many years. His life was totally mess up and painful.

I remember everyone in a church started praying and admonishing him.

After many years he repent, he came back home and started attending church and started taking care of his children and wife.

There will be many people who are living a dangerous life, many will be living in a habitual sinful life, many will be living a lazy, squander life, many will be living undisciplined life, we need to gently and lovingly remind them the gospel.

As a church we are one family in Christ, and we are accountable to each other.

Galatian 6:1.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Purpose of admonishing:

  1. To restore back fellow believers to fellowship with God.

2. To remind fellow believers of their role and responsibilities in church.

3. To help fellow believers to live fruitful and productive life.

4. To help fellow believers to grow spiritually in the Lord.

Remember Measuring standard for admonishment fellow believers should be the scripture, not our skill or experience but scripture should be the standard.

Remember the unruly (idle, lazy people) need to be warned to get back in among the believers and use their God-given gifts in service for the kingdom.

Application:

Dear church we should admonish one another, counsel one another, warning one another with gentleness and grow together in the Lord.

We should continually remind the gospel to one another and grow stronger and deeper in relationship with our Heavenly Father.

2. Encourage the fainthearted. (14b)

Encourage: (para-mu-theo-mai) it is verb and present imperative, so to encourage is a command.

Meaning: it means to comfort, console, exhort.

Fainthearted: small courage, little-spirited, feeble-minded, those who lack spiritual courage.

We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with fainthearted believers in solidarity and support them. The fainthearted, or “timid”, are fearful people who lack confidence perhaps in themselves or even in their faith

They may be discouraged or worried by the challenges of living a Christian life. These people need loving instruction from their fellow believers to calm their fears and to build their confidence in the Lord.

Illustration: It was 3 years ago, I got a call at 6:00 am morning, from a young woman, she said, I want to meet you right now, I said what happened, she said, I will explain when I met you. So we meet up in the park.

She said, I do not want to live anymore, because my boyfriend leaves me, when I listen to her story, she has attempted suicide once before but fortunately people around her save her and take her to hospital. She was depressed, going through excruciate pain.

We spent around two hours, I counsel her with the word of God, and we prayed together. I keep encouraging her daily. She became strong, started coming to church.

After many months she got a good job and she starts taking great responsibility in her family.

One thing we do as a church was, we keep holding on to that sister and we keep encouraging her and keep praying for her.

At last she overcome and received God’s Grace.

Application:

Church there are so many people within the church and outside the church who are really in need of our encouragement and our love and our care.

Let us make use of every opportunity and serve one another.

Let the beauty of Christ be seen in our daily life.

We should not wait for someone to come and tell us the problem but instead let have a shepherd heart, who knows the need of the sheep.

Hebrews 3:13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

3. Help the weak. (14c).

Help: Antexomai, Verb: present imperative, that means helping is a command.

It means Hold firmly to, cleave to, withstand.

Weak: literally it means – not strong, infirm, sick. Strengthless.

Illustration: Helping hand in the village river.

It was 2014, after we complete our bachelor degree, we form a team and went for preaching tour in our home town, after the tour was over we went to Village river for fishing, we were catching lots of fish and we were having much fun in the river. Suddenly, two girls were about to drown in the deep water, I was not far away from them, I was trying to be the hero that day, I tried to save them but even I was about to drown because I was not able to swim, but I manage to come out of the water, I don’t know-how. So, this helpless hero (me) shout for help, help, help. They came running and we join our hand together and pull them out.

Life lesson from this incident.

Firstly: Learn how to swim if you want to be a real-life hero.

Secondly, we are stronger and better together, together we can do greater things.

Thirdly and most importantly, together the church should stretch out hands to the people who are perishing, who are weak, who are falling from faith and save them. We should Hold them tight, we can’t lose them. Let us be a soul winner, be a life saver.

Proverb 11:31 says He who win soul is wise.

Acts 20:35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the LORD Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Helping can be financial help or material help too.

Galatians 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

Application: Are we helping people who are desperately in need of our help.

At this crucial time, you and can be a blessing for many people out there.

I have a beautiful hymn here. I will sing for all of you.

The title of a hymn is call “Be a channel of blessing”

Out in the highways and byways of life,  

many are weary and sad;
Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife,

Making the sorrowing glad.
#   Make me a blessing, make me a blessing,  Out of my life, May Jesus shine;
  Make me a blessing, O saviour, I pray,  Make me a blessing to someone today.

To be a blessing for someone everyday should be our daily goal.

4. Be Patient with everyone. (14d)

Patient: Mak-ro-thy-mei-te – Verb, present imperative. That means be patience is a command.

Meaning: Long-suffering, forbearing, perseverance.

Everyone: all, the whole, every kind of.

1 Tim. 1:16

Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.

2 Peter 3:9 says,

“The Lord is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

You know, God patiently waits for all of us to come to repentance, so we need to have patience with one another.

Illustration: O.T there a story of King Saul, the Israelite were about to fight a battle but they have to do sacrifice first, that sacrifice has to be done by prophet Samuel, but King Saul was impatient to wait Samuel, so King Saul did the sacrifice. As a result, the Lord was not pleased with King Saul, God rejects king Saul and did not use him anymore.

If we are impatient it can destroy all our plan and destroy our relationships and it affects people around us.

Sometimes we are impatient in a crowded city like Mumbai, when we stuck in traffic when we stand in queue to buy a train ticket, to buy food, or even in a shopping mall to pay bills, sometimes we are impatient when the sermon is too long.

Sometimes we are impatient with our spouse, with children or friends.

Ephesian 4:1-2

 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

Being patience will help us to avoid many life problems, being patience is a sign of spiritual maturity. Being patience will help us to understand each other and will help us to serve each other better and being patient will help us grow daily in the Lord.

Application: Beloved church we should have patience, everyone is not the same in church, some are slow learner, some fast learner, some take time to grow.

We have different gift and different personality, we must be patient like our Lord,

Even though we fall in sin and ran away from Him, and live all kind of sinful, wicked life.

He has   so much patience on us.

Psalm 103:8 says,

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

Church we must have patience toward one another and grow together in the Lord.

  • Always pursue good for each other. (15) (Not Retaliate)

“See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always pursue after that which is good for one another and for all people.”

Always: at all times, ever.

Pursue: verb, present imperative, so it is a command.

Literally means- by implication, to persecute, follow after, press forward.

Good: intrinsically good, good in nature.

Romans 12: 9-21

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 
On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Conclusion:

Church we have seen 5 points under the topic “Growing together in the Lord”

(1) Admonish the unruly
(2) Encourage the fainthearted
(3) Helping the weak
(4) Patiently caring to everyone
(5) Always pursue good for each other.

Why we must do all these? it is because Christ has loved us and sacrifice His life for us, and we have received the forgiveness of sins and now we have eternal life in Him.

Church He has done so much for us, Now it is our time to love Him, and serve Him and obey His command.

Therefore we must Lovingly admonish one another, Let us Carefully encourage the fainthearted, let us graciously help the weak, let us patiently care for all people and let us always pursue good for each other and grow together in the Lord. As a church and as an ambassador of Christ we should join our hand together and build up the body of Christ, we should strive to become a stronger and healthier follower of Christ.

God bless all of you amen.

Categories
1 Thessalonians Sermon

The role of elders in our journey of faith- 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13

https://www.facebook.com/thegatheringcommunity/videos/2360971784200966/

Good morning church! Hope you are doing well. We have completed 6 weeks of our lockdown and the latest reports do tell us that it will be extended at least till the end of May.

I know it is a testing time for all of us with the increase of COVID-19 cases and as the impact inches closer to home. In times like these when fear and uncertainty grip our minds, we need now more than ever an encouragement from God’s Word [the Bible].

Our faith needs to be energized to continue trusting and hoping in God. I’m thankful to God for this series of ‘Abiding faith’ from 1 Thessalonians. It’s like an apt letter for a difficult time like this. And today we are going to look at how “elders play a crucial role in our journey of faith”. Would you turn with me once more to our text for the day – 1 Thess 5:12-13?   

12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 
13 and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

Thess 5:12-13

I once heard this fictitious story of a discussion between the pastor of a certain church and the worship leader on a minor change for that week’s service. As the discussion grew, it got more heated.

Seeing that this was turning into an argument the pastor said “I think we should go home and pray and ask God to give us peaceful hearts.” After the worship service the coming week, the worship leader warmly greeted and told him “I took your advice and went home and said a prayer”.

The pastor said “Great. So did I. I asked God to grant us both peaceful hearts and a fresh start.” The worship leader replied “Although that’s not what I prayed for. I asked God to help me & give me the strength to put up with you”!!!

While there could be a variety of reasons as to why it’s not always the easiest to respect and highly esteem the pastors among us (we will come to that in a few minutes), I want to start by asking all of us this question

“Is it really necessary for a church to have pastors? Is their role really important?”

I’ll be answering this question with 4 more questions today – “What, Why, How and What next?”

1. What is the labour that pastors engage in?

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labour among you….to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. (v12-13)

What is the labour or work? Some people think that pastors are necessary for administration. Just to ensure that they have a steady pipeline of events organized well. Some other probably think that pastors exist to entertain the congregation on a Sunday morning with a well-crafted speech, couple of jokes here and there to keep it engaging – something like a Ted talk. Is that what pastors are called to? Or is it something else?

Here’s a simple definition of pastors –

They are God called, God gifted, assessed and publicly recognized individuals to lead God’s people in local churches.

a) God called: They are called by God to protect, provide and care for the souls of God’s people.

Look at what Paul says in Acts 20:28 to the Ephesian elders – Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God,[e] which he obtained with his own blood.

Paul doesn’t say “I made you an elder/pastor. He says “the Holy Spirit has made you overseers”. Their appointment letter figuratively is signed by God and not an organization.

Just like the husband in the home is given the unique calling and responsibility to set the tone for provision in the family, to set the tone for physically and spiritually protecting the family, to set the tone by being an example in the family…in the same way pastors in the church are given “delegated authority” to provide, protect and care for God’s church.

It is a delegated authority that is bound by God’s Word and for which they will need to give an account for. The moment the pastor says anything outside of God’s Word, it ceases to be authoritative.

We aren’t obligated to do anything that the pastor tells us to do that is not flowing out of God’s Word.

b) God gifted: The pastor needs to be “able to teach” or as some other versions put it “an apt teacher” [1 Tim 3].

By God gifted I’m not saying that the pastor needs to have a daily podcast or an exceptional orator but someone who is equipped to faithfully preach and teach God’s Word.

As I said earlier, the delegated authority to be able to “rebuke, correct and train in righteousness” [2 Tim 3:16] comes from the Word. If the pastor faithfully explains and applies the passage of Scripture, then to disbelieve or to disobey would be to disbelieve or disobey God! That’s a huge thing.

A pastor is not called to state his opinions on different matters of the Bible. He’s not called to say things like “I think it’s not a wise idea for all of us to sin in this area”.

A pastor is called and gifted by God to preach and teach the very words of God and that has tremendous authority.

c) Assessed: When we look at the qualifications for pastors in 1 Tim 3 and Titus 1, we see that most of the qualifications are character qualities for which the church would need to have spent sufficient time with the candidate to evaluate his life.

Superior leadership qualities or oratory skills or administrative knack don’t count for anything. Maturity in the person’s lifestyle is what is being evaluated.

And that’s important because the pastor is called to “Set the tone for spiritual life in the church”.

 d) Publicly recognized: By public recognition, I don’t mean having a daily podcast, being featured on various church blogs or having a large twitter following.

What I mean by publicly recognized is that the pastors are officially recognized as the pastors in their local congregation. In the NT we see a pattern of laying of hands before the church.

And that’s important because the church needs to know who they need to approach for guidance & instruction. It can’t be left to assumptions.

Brothers and sisters, this is an important role in the church. But despite knowing that pastors are God called, God gifted, assessed and publicly recognized individuals to lead God’s people in local churches,

2) Why is it that we struggle to that respect and esteem pastors?

12 We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you

Thess 5:12

In v12 when Paul says “we ask you, brothers”, he is actually making an “earnest request”. The Hindi translation of this word is closer to the Greek translation – “Vinnti” – an earnest request is being made to this young Thessalonian church because they were not appreciating and respecting their pastors enough.

Our human experiences today aren’t too different from the Thessalonians. We struggle to do the same if we are honest. Some reasons could be:

a) We equate respect to ability: In our sinfulness, we end up respecting those that manage to “Wow” us with their abilities.

People need to “earn our respect”. In our sin, we think that if the pastor is better than us in his bible knowledge or behaviour or skill level, then we respect the pastor.

The flip-side is if we think we are better than the pastor in our abilities, then he doesn’t deserve our respect. Some years back I was having a conversation with a brother in Christ who had a solid understanding and training in the Word.

He certainly knew a lot more than me. But as we were talking about his church and his pastors, I realized he became quite bitter and said some unkind things about his pastors. And it surprised me because I wondered how could it be that a solid person in the Bible was having a tough time respecting his own pastors?

Later I figured it was his own bible knowledge that made him not respect his pastors. Now it is possible that he knew more than his pastors, but that doesn’t undermine the authority of those God called, God gifted, assessed and publicly recognized pastors to lead his own heart.

b) We fail to submit to authority: We see this displayed in all walks of life. Children struggle to submit to the authority of parents.

Citizens of a country oppose the authority of the government even if it’s a good government. Employees don’t submit to the authority of their employers. Similarly, even in churches, members have a hard time submitting themselves to their pastors.

And the issue is an internal one. It is a heart issue where we don’t like to be corrected. Even though we might not say it out loud, we echo these thoughts everyday “Who does that person think they are to tell me what to do?” “I should be the only one who decides what or what should not happen in my life” “I will submit only to my authority and no one else”.

And this failure to submit to authority goes back right to the Garden of Eden. This doesn’t have a modern origin story. Adam and Eve ate the fruit because they wanted to “be like God”. They wanted to independently decide what is right or wrong for them apart from God.

They wanted autonomy and all of human history has been paying the painful and deadly price for independence apart from God.

c) We have been victims of pastoral abuse: Some of us could find it hard to respect or esteem pastors because of a really painful and hurtful past experience.

It could have been harsh verbal abuse; it could have been manipulation or it could have also been inappropriate behaviour. And these I understand have damaging effects on the way we trust pastors now and also perceive spiritual things.

And honestly brothers and sisters, I have experienced all the three in my past experiences. I have laughed at and disrespected my pastors & I’ve also experienced the pain of pastoral abuse.

This has been a topic that really drove my heart to repenting this week. Which brings us to the question if there is any hope available for us?

3) How can Jesus Christ redeem us from this?

a) How can Jesus redeem us from equating respect to ability? The good news of Jesus tells us that God chose to treat us well in spite of our disabilities.

We had no means and no way of being able to present ourselves as acceptable and pure before God. All our best works were only as good as filthy rags.

Yet through the sacrifice of Jesus, God has given us a place of respect and privilege as His own children. This crushes the worldly thought process of equating respect with ability.

b) How can Jesus redeem us from failing to submit to authority? When we look at the root of every sin that we have ever committed, deep down there is a stubborn defiance to not submit to God’s authority.

It’s super humbling to realize that Jesus Christ hung and died on a cross to pay the full price for our unsubmissive heart and deeds!

Christ Jesus paid the highest cost to rescue us from the deadly snare of independence & bring us back to the safety net of God dependence.

c) How can Jesus redeem us from the hurt of pastoral abuse -> Can we receive healing? Yes, the healing comes from forgiveness.

But how it is it possible to forgive someone who has done so much of damage to my life and spirituality?

When we realize the depths of God’s forgiveness in spite of our spiritual abuse against Him, as painful as it seems it allows us to forgive the people responsible for the pastoral abuse.

Because of the good news of Jesus, we have both the power and the motivation to forgive!

In the light of how Christ has redeemed us –

4) What do we do next?

How do we actually now apply these truths of respecting our pastors and highly esteeming them in love?

Is it by buttering up our pastors and showering them with compliments? Not really.

But we can show our care and value by these things:

1. Pray for your pastors: One of the most caring things you can do for us as your pastors is bringing us before the throne of God frequently and ask God to give us greater intimacy with Jesus, give us wisdom on how to lead you all well especially through a pandemic – none of us in this generation have seen or heard anything of this kind & also pray for provision as we follow God’s call.

2. Obey your pastors: To remind you again – our delegated authority comes from God’s Word. Therefore, if it’s an instruction or correction that’s coming clearly from Scripture, then obedience is how you show your allegiance to God and value for the elders God has placed over you.

Just know guys – our heart is always to point you to glorify God and for your good.

3. Encourage your pastors: We might assume that pastors don’t need encouragement and are self-sufficient but its far from that.

We as your pastors need your encouragement from the Word as much as you do. We need encouragement to continue to pour and toil in ministry and do it with a joyful heart.

Jesus Christ is author and leader of His church! He is the Lead Pastor. All the pastors from all-time report to Him.

It’s so beautiful that He would choose broken individuals like us and use us to lead His people even as He is also repairing us!

God leads us as we follow the leadership of those He has placed over us. Be it in the family being led by the husband or in the family of God (the local church) led by the pastors.