2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

[0:00] Good morning, church. Thank you. So for those of you who don't know me,! My name is Kyle Spivey, and I've got some feedback maybe.

[0:11] I've been coming to Shoreline since the beginning. Typically, I'm not over here. I'm over there. This is a much more scarier side of the pulpit, or scarier side of the screen, so bear with me.

[0:22] So I've got the privilege this morning to bring to you a passage that I don't know if I ever really expected to bring to you. It's not something that's controversial. It's not like eschatology or predestination or something like that.

[0:35] But when the elders reached out to me and asked if I could preach, I said, sure. Followed by, I've got no idea what I'm going to preach on. So pray with me.

[0:46] We'll get into the text that I'll introduce in a moment, and we'll go from there. God, we come to you this morning thanking you that you are a good God. God, you are a God who is slow to anger abounding in steadfast love and mercy.

[1:01] A God who is a God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. A God who sent his son to be, as Matt said, the propitiation for our sins. God, I thank you that you've given us the opportunity to hear and listen to your word proclaimed.

[1:18] God, I pray that you would work through my lips, my mouth, Lord, just to speak to Shoreline here this morning the words that you've laid on my heart on a text that I kind of just stumbled on.

[1:34] God, you would be with me and nerves and anxiety as up here because even though I come up here and sing songs and lead the church in music, it's a heavy weight to lead the church in proclaiming the gospel.

[1:50] Lord, so I pray that you would use my words, use the text that you've brought before me this morning. God, that as we study your word, as we dive into 2 Thessalonians, God, that you would be honored.

[2:05] Lord, that you would be glorified. In your name I pray. Amen. Amen. So like I said, this summer, the elders are like, preach from the Psalms. It's great. I can preach from a Psalm.

[2:15] I can pick a Psalm. This time I had really no idea where I was going to be preaching from. And so I did what anybody could do. I went to my shelf, my bookshelf, grabbed a notebook from 10 years ago, started flipping through pages and said, there's five verses.

[2:30] I'll preach on that. Got a page of notes. It's not 40 verses like Jordan had last week, so I won't do that to you. But so these five verses, kind of God put in front of my face from notes that I had 10 years ago.

[2:45] But as I've dove into this text, I've seen that God continually works through his word, through passages that we allow him to reveal to us, right? 2 Thessalonians isn't a book that frequently gets quoted or referenced.

[3:00] You know, it's the little brother to 1 Thessalonians almost. But it's another place that we can see who God is and what he's done and what it means to us. So what we're going to do is we're going to read the text.

[3:12] I'm going to say another prayer over the text. We're going to dive into the background and we'll get into it. So 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 through 5. I apologize. Some of the text may not be up there, but Josiah's ahead of it.

[3:24] So thank you. So 2 Thessalonians 3, 1 through 5. Finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men.

[3:36] For not all have faith, but the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one. We have confidence in the Lord about you that you are doing and will do the things that we command. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.

[3:50] So Father, as we look at this text, Lord, may our hearts be directed to the love of God, the love of God that sent his son and the steadfastness of Christ that allowed Christ to do what he did so that we can stand here now thousands of years later proclaiming the truth about that.

[4:14] Lord, so be with us this morning as we study your word. Amen. So like I said, 2 Thessalonians, not a book that many people are familiar with. So before we jump into the actual text, let's step back a little bit.

[4:27] Let's go to Acts 17. We're going to read about 15 verses from there. So I don't want to pull out these random five verses from a text and just throw some facts at you without having a full understanding of what's going on in Thessalonica.

[4:39] And that background, that understanding of what's going on is going to help fuel the understanding of this text. So Thessalonica at the time was the capital city of Macedonia. It was on the corner of two major highways and right on the sea with a population of about 200,000.

[4:55] Does that sound familiar to anybody? 95, 395, Long Island Sound, New London County. And it's comprised of a bunch of people from around the country to go there to do business.

[5:07] So it's people from around the country in an area at a time to do something that they needed to do, right? Whether it's school, work, selling and trading, whatever it is.

[5:22] So keep that in mind. So Luke's account of Paul's trip, Acts 17, 1 through 15. If you want to turn there, if not, let's just read it. Now when they, this is Paul, Timothy, and Silas, had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

[5:41] And Paul went in, as was his custom. And on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead. And saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ.

[5:54] And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But Jews were jealous and taking some wicked men of rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in uproar and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd.

[6:11] When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers to the city authorities, shouting, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. And Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus.

[6:25] And the people in the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. When they had taken money as a security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.

[6:37] When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. And many of them therefore believed with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

[6:52] When the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed to Paul and Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea.

[7:03] But Silas and Timothy remained there. Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens. And after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

[7:18] So that puts a lot of it in context, right? These 14 verses is pretty intense. Paul comes into a new area. He does what he normally does. He preaches. Then he hides.

[7:29] He escapes. He preaches. Then he hides and escapes. He goes to Athens. Then he ends up in Corinth where he's writing this letter. Imagine what Paul was wondering about the Thessalonians, right?

[7:41] The church in Thessalonica. 2 Thessalonians was written shortly after 1 Thessalonians. It's actually thought that 2 Thessalonians was written as 1 Thessalonians was being received.

[7:51] So this is roughly 49 to 51 AD. Paul started a church in an area. And as we know, Paul is deeply invested in his churches. So the church in an area that is predominantly non-Christian, Greek with obviously a synagogue, with people from all over the world.

[8:07] So Paul wrote back wanting to make sure that they had the discipleship and the guidance that they needed. 1 Thessalonians was written after a report came back from Timothy, right? Paul had been pushed away from Thessalonica.

[8:18] He goes and he's sitting in Corinth, hanging out. He's like, I need to go right back and I need to send Timothy back to Thessalonica to see what's actually happening there. How are these people doing? The people that were met with this persecution, this hostility.

[8:30] They ran me out. What's going on in Thessalonica? So Timothy goes there. He comes back, brings Paul this great report. So 1 Thessalonians written to encourage faith, hope, and love with like this undertone of the return of Christ.

[8:45] And that's after Timothy brings back this great encouraging report. So why would Paul write what's assumed to be just months later another letter to the Thessalonians?

[8:59] The answer is to address the sin concern that he had seen, that he had heard about. Paul obviously wasn't there, but he knew that there was something going on that he needed to address. Paul, as we see in Scripture, cared for the churches.

[9:10] He had a hand in starting. He wanted to make sure that though he's not around, that they would be pointing to the right direction and doing the things that they were commanded to do. So Paul writes 2 Thessalonians to remind them that Christ hasn't returned and to not be idle.

[9:29] Christians in Thessalonica were acting as if Christ had already come back, which for us, it's kind of crazy to think about, right? I don't think any of us in this room think that Christ has come back to gather his bride.

[9:40] So idleness is defined as the lack of energy or motion. The book hinges on verse 3-6, which is not one of the five verses that we're talking about, but again, this is the context side of it.

[9:53] So to get an understanding of what the five verses we're talking about, we need to understand kind of the theme of the whole book. So verse 3-6 says, Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness.

[10:07] So Paul encourages the Thessalonians to work and be active. And if we're going to think about it, right, if Christ has returned and gathered his bride, what's the point of the Great Commission?

[10:19] What's the point of doing work? What's the point of doing anything, right? If Christ has returned and gathered his bride and the day of the Lord has come, let's just hang out. Just be lazy. Do nothing. But Paul is reminding them that the day of the Lord has not come.

[10:32] Chapter 1 of 2 Thessalonians is all about the man of lawlessness and this what's going to happen before Christ comes. Chapter 2 says the same thing and kind of continues on.

[10:44] But Christ hasn't come back yet, so Paul needed to address this. So you might be asking me at this point, so Kyle, if the book is about the future coming of Christ and idleness, why are we talking about five verses that key words are prayer, faithfulness, love, and steadfastness?

[11:00] I'm glad you asked. And like I said, I thought the same thing. When I picked these five verses out, that wasn't my plan to come and talk about idleness and the coming of Christ. But as I dove into the text, that's what I see.

[11:14] So let's dive into the text. Look at what God is saying in these five verses. And we'll go from there. So there are five verses easily broken out into three non-alliterative headings.

[11:25] Prayer, faith, and steadfastness. PFS can be arranged SPF, like sunscreen. Something that may not be alliterative, but it's something we need.

[11:37] I wasn't planning on saying that, but Matt told me that this morning. Sorry. So Paul's first tells his readers to pray for him. So in verses one and two, finally, brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from the wicked and evil men, for not all have faith.

[11:56] Paul recognizes the importance in the need for prayer and the importance of many voices going up and asking God about the same things. That's why those days of fasting and prayer as a church are huge for the body.

[12:09] We voluntarily join in a suffering by removing something from our lives with the goal of focusing on him. Paul asks not just that he's safe or that he'll be delivered, but first and foremost, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead.

[12:21] Paul's asking for the word of the Lord to enjoy unhindered progress. By people acknowledging its truth. So are we praying the same prayer? In our community groups, are we praying for not only what is being studied that night, but also that that word may speed ahead of us, that may go before us as we go into our jobs and to our communities, to our neighborhoods, to all the wherever, that it may speed ahead so that those who proclaim it may see the fruit.

[12:49] We see here Paul as the shepherd and he looks back to the Thessalonians in chapter 1 verse 4. He says, therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and the afflictions that you're enduring.

[13:03] He sees how they responded in the midst of him getting run out of town after town and the townspeople chasing them and they remain faithful. Paul asks for prayer knowing that they will do just that. So what do I see here?

[13:15] I see a call for us to pray. Pray for the word of the Lord to enjoy unhindered progress. So if you step back and think about how do we do that here now? So who is proclaiming the word?

[13:27] The people that are proclaiming the word are the people that are up here preaching. So are you praying for our leaders? Are you praying for the word of the Lord to enjoy unhindered progress? Hostility in the word are frequently met or the word is frequently met with hostility.

[13:43] Randy Matthews, who we support as a missionary, goes into all the world training those who take the word to be met with places where there is physical hostility. We don't necessarily have that here, right?

[13:54] We're meeting in the hotel ballroom of Holiday Inn. We've been doing this for a couple years. We do it openly without the worry of hostility, physical hostility. But I can tell you the leaders who have been up here preparing these messages each week are met with hostility, are met with sin and temptation that they struggle with.

[14:13] Each person that stands up here to proclaim the truth of the gospel is met daily with this hostility. So are you praying for them? Like Andrew said, we've updated the Shoreline calendar to now include the calendar says on Sunday this person's preaching and they're going to preach out this text.

[14:31] So I encourage you use that as a basis of some of your prayers. So you might be asking, Kyle, the themes of the 2 Thessalonians are the return of Christ in idleness, so why are we talking about prayer?

[14:45] So I just encourage you to pray. And each one of you are thinking, yeah, that's a great idea, Kyle. I'm going to pray. I'm going to look there tomorrow to see who's praying next week. It's Rob, just FYI.

[14:57] But have you ever said you're going to pray for somebody and you didn't? Encouraged to pray for a ministry and you didn't? Is it because you forgot? Or is it because you have a low view of God like Job's friends?

[15:09] I know for me sometimes it's legitimately I forget. I do it out of obligation because I know someone's going to say, hey, did you pray for somebody? I say, yeah, I did. I do it because I didn't want to answer no to that question.

[15:24] But I was reminded in our community group the other week of the deep joy of praying to our Father and the joy of joining together as a community to pray to a God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and mercy.

[15:39] A God who is faithful and just who listens who cares. Jordan's sermon last week was 40 verses about God's faithfulness and his mercy. I encourage you to go back and listen to that. So when we pray we along with the Holy Spirit combat the evil one.

[15:52] And I encourage each of you do not be idle in your prayer life. So this week when you pray pray for Rob Buttermore as he preps for next week. Not just that his bad jokes are minimized but he would lean on Christ for his understanding that he's met with hostility that comes with sermon prep.

[16:14] He would not rely on himself but his Father. He's sitting in the back. Go find him. Get his phone number. Get his email address and ask him what it means. And you'll understand.

[16:25] Pray for Rob. So Paul knows this and he knows that holding fast to God to pray and to talk for the word of the Lord to enjoy unhindered progress will guard our hearts as the prayers will guard our hearts against the evil one.

[16:41] So do not be idle in your prayer but even in the anxiety about the future in the midst of suffering in your life or in the life of someone else you know in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

[16:57] But prayer takes faith. For not all have faith. If you go to the next slide I think. So Paul comes to the Thessalonians and said pray for us.

[17:10] We're against a lot of stuff. We want the word of the Lord to enjoy unhindered progress and we need to have prayer for us against the evil one. But don't worry because God is faithful.

[17:22] Right? Jordan had 40 verses in 41 minutes or whatever the time was last week about God's faithfulness. Again I encourage you to go back and listen to that sermon. He summarized a lot of the points that I was going to have so it made my sermon a lot shorter.

[17:37] You're welcome. So Paul recognizes that Satan has been actively trying to destroy the lives of those in Thessalonica. Right? The men of Rabel the Jewish leader in that area the men of Rabel they were brought up and they forced Paul and his companions out.

[17:52] And not only did they force him out of Thessalonica but they forced him out of Berea into Athens and then eventually on the Corinth. So think back to the days when the church fasted. Anyone else feel that those days were more difficult?

[18:06] Was it because you weren't eating or weren't clicking on social media or watching a show or whatever it was? Do you think it was because you were hungry or because there were spiritual attacks and spiritual warfare? Jordan reminded us last week and Paul reminds us here that God is faithful and will deliver us from the evil one.

[18:23] This isn't a suggestion or a three-step process but a hope rooted in the truth of who God is. So prayer and faith. These are the first two topics we've talked about. My prayer is rooted not in the strength of my faith but in God's faithfulness.

[18:36] And the strength of my faith itself is weak but God's word and who he is his faithfulness is strong. The strength of myself is weak but God is strong. So where is my reliance in my prayer life?

[18:50] Is it in myself? Am I remembering the work that God had performed thousands of years ago? Romans 11 says do not be arrogant towards the branches. If you are, remember, it is not you who support the root but the root that supports you.

[19:04] Then you will say to the branches that were broken off that I might be grafted in. That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud but fear.

[19:15] So faith is tied to fear. Fear has been said like Aslan in Narnia. Aslan, one, to be feared so much so that you draw near rather than run.

[19:27] So when you see the passages like that Jordan talked about, the list, the laundry list of things that we're called to do, we're reminded that we can't do that in our own faith.

[19:39] That the faithfulness that God provides is what allows us to enjoy, enjoy, not enjoy, enjoy, do the things that God calls us to do. Fear is a recognition of who God is and remembers and what he's done.

[19:53] Different passages in scripture highlight the work of God. So do you fear God? Does your faith have an element of fear? One cannot be idle in one's faith if one truly fears and knows the Lord.

[20:06] The commands of the Lord to go, do, stand firm, love, listen, care, like I said, the laundry list that Jordan had last week. These are not the things that produce faith but rather results of the faith that God gives and the free gift that God gave.

[20:20] The Thessalonians thought that Christ had come back and therefore they were idle. Their faith became weak. We're waiting for Christ to come back so what is our response? The God of the universe sent his son to live the life that we could not live to die the death that we deserve with a promise to return and gather himself, gather his bride to himself.

[20:38] So what is our response? Do we turn and act or do we go about tomorrow just like we do every Monday? What changes if we truly thought that Christ was coming back tomorrow or the next day or the next month?

[20:49] The next year. Do we fear and what is our response? Paul writes in confidence and has confidence that those who are Christ's, those who are in Thessalonica will do as they were taught as what they were taught was from the Lord.

[21:02] So do we hear the word of God with faith and fear? Do we hear the word of the Lord and respond? Can our leaders say with confidence as Paul says in verse 4 and we have confidence about you that you are doing and will do the things that we command?

[21:15] Why? Because the Lord is faithful. Finally, Paul says the Lord will direct their hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.

[21:28] So this text is kind of broken into three different sections, right? Prayer, Paul's asking for prayer for himself, for the word of the Lord, reminding the Thessalonians that God is faithful because they've been up against a bunch of stuff, a bunch of junk, for not all have faith.

[21:43] Paul reminds them that not all have faith but God is faithful. And then he prays for the Thessalonians. He says, may the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ.

[21:58] So what is the love of God? The love of God sent his son. The love of God called his son to be crucified, to live a perfect sinless life so that he could die a sinner.

[22:12] To take on our sin. What is the steadfastness of Christ? The steadfastness of Christ was to do the will of the Lord. Steadfastness, constancy, faithfulness, patient endurance.

[22:27] You know, there's a bunch of different synonyms for that. So think about this. The word is proclaimed. You hear a sermon about fighting sin, fighting idleness. So what do you do?

[22:39] You go home, you get your boxing gloves because you're going to fight. You put the iPhones, iPads, computers, whatever it is, it's calling you to idleness in the drawer so you don't, you know, waste time.

[22:53] You don't become idle. A couple days later, you need to check something out. Are you going to get the best deal at Aldi or at Stop and Shop? Next thing you know, you've watched a couple Danny McCaskill videos, some messy highlights, some home improvement videos, guitar comparisons, home improvement ideas, and now you're on the cat videos.

[23:09] So what happened? What happened to that sermon that you heard just three days earlier? Not up here telling you to not watch cat videos. Maybe I am.

[23:21] But what I'm asking you is where are you finding your joy? Okay. Hold on, Kyle. You just jump from steadfastness to joy without any sort of transition. And I thought we were talking about the return of Christ in idleness.

[23:34] Remember, idleness is defined as, can be defined as lack of motion or energy. Paul here saw and heard that Thessalonians were idle so he called them out.

[23:45] They thought they had reached the end so they stopped working, they stopped caring. They were just hanging out lazily, not doing much. Paul calls them to action and calls them for their hearts to be directed to the steadfastness of Christ.

[24:00] Christ's joy was in his Father. His steadfastness, he was steadfast because of where he was rooted. John 4, after Christ had talked to the woman at the well, Christ, the scripture says, John 4, verse 31.

[24:18] Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about. So the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat? Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

[24:34] Do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the field is white with harvest. Christ shows that his life, his joy, his purpose, his sustenance came from the Father and calls his disciples to recognize the same thing, but to recognize the work that's ahead.

[24:54] Christ was not idle. Christ points to the harvest that's before the disciples and calls them to not be idle, but to be ready, be willing. Christ's joy was in his Father, so he kept moving forward in obedience.

[25:06] He was the opposite of idle. He was not motionless. Christ hasn't come back to gather his bride, so what are we doing? We should emulate the steadfastness of Christ.

[25:20] Christ could be because his focus wasn't on himself, on his comfort. If Christ's focus was on himself and his comfort, we wouldn't be up here preaching. We wouldn't be singing songs because if his focus was on himself, he probably wouldn't have chosen the cross.

[25:37] But Christ chose the cross because his desire was the will of the Father. His joy was out outside of himself and ground in joy with his Father. So idleness and joy, the steadfastness of Christ, are intertwined.

[25:53] Matt asked a similar question a couple weeks ago when we were going through Romans 1. What's providing you joy? Is it the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ?

[26:03] Is it the things that we see in Scripture? Paul calls us to endure. So what do you need to endure in? What do you need to find your joy in? When we see the love of God and the faithfulness of God?

[26:17] When we listen to Jordan's sermon about the faithfulness of God, are we drawn to God because of his love for us? His love, his mercy, his gift. The love of God sent his Son.

[26:29] The steadfastness of Christ is shown throughout the Gospels, shown throughout Scripture. So how do we take this and act? I don't know for everyone, but this is where it became convicting for me. I read this section when I was figuring out what to preach and I thought I'd preach on prayer, faith, and love.

[26:45] Those are three great topics. But as I've spent time in reading and listening and struggling through the text and some other things, I've realized the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ that Paul calls us to prevents us and pushes us away from idleness and draws us to find our joy in Christ.

[27:02] How can I be idle? Or how can I find my joy in things of this world when I know what God has done? How can I come home and completely check out when I know that Christ died for my kids, my wife, my neighbors, my church?

[27:14] How can I wake up early at 4 a.m. when my dog wakes me up and choose to go back to sleep, or 5 a.m. for that matter, because yesterday was tough when I see the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ?

[27:27] I can't imagine that, but I do it. And interestingly enough, Carl Crabtree, a couple weeks ago, at the last men's prayer breakfast, it was about the same time I started looking through Scripture trying to figure out what to study, what to kind of come and preach before.

[27:43] I needed a walkthrough viewing of how do we identify our habitual sin in our lives? And what came to mind was me pursuing my own comfort. And I'm not talking about going off and buying a bunch of things or going off and spending money on food and whatever else, but I saw that I was coming home from work, long day at work, long weeks at the Spivey House, with the desire to just check out, to just find my comfort in nothing.

[28:16] And that's why it's amazing to see how God's Word works in our lives. To see that idleness was a big hit to the pride is another sin struggle.

[28:29] Why have I been choosing to come home and choose idleness when I'm leading studies, leading music, leading my family, when I'm preparing to preach on idleness, which I didn't realize at that point? How can I say that as a reflect?

[28:41] I was choosing a lack of motion, a lack of energy, even though God sent His Son to save me from sin in the pit of hell. In God's faithfulness, God calls us to Himself.

[28:53] In God's faithfulness, when sin entered the world, sin entered the world and it came with a promise, a promise that was fulfilled in the New Testament. So thankfully, this passage was put in my face for me to read for this text and to say these words.

[29:08] The words hit home. It may not for everybody, right? Idleness is something that everybody struggles with in some way. But like I've said, reflect on your life. What is giving you joy?

[29:19] What is the pursuit of your joy? That pursuit of joy, if it's not Christ, is going to result in idleness within Scripture, within your spirit. If you're pursuing things of this world, if you're focusing on what you hunger and thirst for, if it's not Christ, you're entering into the fear of idleness.

[29:39] So Paul's words to the Christians in Thessalonica encouraged prayer, faith, and then directed our hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ. So do you have a view of the steadfastness that Christ showed throughout his life?

[29:52] Christ, we know, was put on trials. He suffered. He endured many things before the cross, right? He was mocked, persecuted, ridiculed.

[30:06] He was put on trials the same way that we are. He suffered. So are we choosing to take up the cross or do we put our cross on the mantle and say, give me a second, God, I'll be right there. Christ endured the cross accepting the punishment.

[30:19] For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, if you have faith, you will be saved. The salvation that comes when your mind and your heart collide, recognizing who Christ is and what he's done should result in nothing but the opposite of idleness.

[30:37] Result in nothing but the opposite of finding joy in the world. So be on the lookout. Ask yourself, we're going to spend some time in communion later. Ask yourself, what am I searching for?

[30:48] What am I finding my joy in? What fulfills my hunger and my thirst? Is it Christ and what he's done? Or is it self-comfort, self-satisfaction, the pursuit of whatever, the next big thing?

[31:07] I know when I set out to write a sermon about the first five verses of chapter three of 2 Thessalonians because I had a page of notes from nine years ago, I didn't expect to write this one. But I've reminded and I've seen that Christ and the Spirit are not idle even now.

[31:21] What I thought was going to be a sermon about prayer, faith, and love turned into be a text that I needed to hear to bring things in my own life to light. God is active and moving now.

[31:34] The steadfastness of Christ is continuing on in the work of the Spirit in our lives here and now. And I was reminded of that as I've been studying this passage, preparing to preach, that though I grabbed a random notebook because I hadn't touched it in years, opened up and said there's a page of notes.

[31:53] I can preach on that, that makes sense. As I've dove into it, I've realized that God is continuing to work in our lives. When we give Him that opportunity, when we spend time with Him, when we pursue Him and what He's done, the work of Christ in our life.

[32:09] So God was gracious to point out these things in my own life, this sin in my own life, to work through this text and draw me closer to Him, to say, Kyle, why are you being idle?

[32:20] Why are you saying you're going to pray for somebody when you do it a little bit but then you forget? Is it because you don't believe who, you don't believe God and who God says He is? Is it because you want to do things your own way?

[32:34] So Shoreline, fight for faithfulness. Fight for seeing and knowing the love of God by battling to know the love and the character of God and the steadfastness of Christ and allow that knowledge to fuel your love for Him which ultimately produces a desire to pray deeply, act faithfully and not be idle.

[32:57] So church, as it says in 2 Thessalonians 3, 13, I think, as you brothers do not grow weary in doing good.

[33:10] So Paul calls us to not be idle but he encourages us to do good. So Shoreline, pray with me. God, we thank You that this morning we can listen to Your Word.

[33:24] God, that You gave us a text this morning that I pray transforms hearts and minds towards You. God, that the knowledge of who You are and what You've done draws us and points us to You.

[33:44] God, that Your cross, the sacrifice that Christ made was sufficient for my sin. That His death, that Christ's death once and for all covered our sin.

[33:56] So Lord, I pray that we as a church would fight idleness. God, that we would pursue our joy in You. Lord, I pray that as we continue in the service, as we sing another song and take communion, Lord, that we would search our heart for what You're speaking to us.

[34:15] God, that You would search our heart and You would reveal sin in our lives. Lord, though it may not be idleness, it may be something else, but as Matt pointed out a couple weeks ago, what are we finding our joy in? What are we searching for?

[34:26] What satisfies the thirst and the hunger that we may have? Is it You, God, or is it something else? So Lord, I pray this morning for those that don't know You, those that are hearing this word and may not know You as their Lord and Savior, that this morning that they would hear Your word and it would be a message that hits their heart to see that the pursuit of things of this world ultimately results in the desire to pursue something else.

[34:55] Right? Pursuit of the mountain, you get on top of the mountain, there's a bigger mountain, so you have to pursue that. But God, You are good. You're true. You're faithful.

[35:07] So Lord, we love You and we thank You. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.