Second Thessalonians 1:3-5 Giving Thanks to the Brethren
2 Thessalonians 1:3-5 · Andrew Molloy · Jul 18, 2021
Thessalonians, No. 25
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261923334423

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today's passage is 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1, verses 3 through 5. Do I have that correct, Roger? Yes, that's right. I think I studied the right thing. That's good. I'm always worried about that. I understand. You always can call me or email me or text me. Twice, yeah, I know. That's where all the saying goes. Yeah. Okay, verse 3.

Paul says to the Thessalonians, we ought always to give thanks to you, brethren, as it's only fitting because your faith is greatly enlarged and the love of each one of you towards one another grows even greater, ever greater. Verse four, therefore we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions, which you endure. Verse five, this is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which indeed you are suffering. So I want to get right into verses three and four this morning and we'll do those pretty quickly because they're simple.

But this first five, this really vexed me. Even last week, I just was like, wow, what's this thing? So thanks, Roger. Okay, good. It's a little nugget to crack. Oh yeah, that's great. And I just wasn't, and first, part of the problem is that the translation of the New American Standard, which is this translation, is, as I say later, it's a clunky translation. It's just, there's a better one.

So we'll look at that. So we'll go on right to verse three here. We ought always to give thanks for you, brethren, as is only fitting. And then we'll look at that first part of verse three. The word ought is not, I ought to do this, or I really ought to do this, as we know in English, or I haven't got around to it, but I ought to do it. It's rendered more correctly. We are indeed obligated to give thanks to you, brethren.

It's a term of indebtedness. Ophelio is what it is. And if you look in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke in there, Jesus is always using this word for payment of a debt or a monetary thing. So it's a word of debt. So It's not aught, but a word of debt. So what he's saying is, we're indebted to God for you, for your faith and your love, and for you, the Thessalonians.

The King James reads, we are bound to give thanks. So you can see it's a positive thing and it's not an ought word. So if you have a different word in your translations, maybe King James, it's probably better than the word ought there. But I like we are indeed obligated to give thanks. I have bound. Yeah, then that's good. We are bound to give thanks. That's a good one too.

And then this part about it is only fitting that we give thanks to God is, again, the King James reads, we ought to always give thanks to you, to God for you, brethren, as it is meat. So is this fitting? Fitting is a good, translation for that word, and I'm not going to go into Greek there and give you the Greek word, but it has a connotation of one side of the equation is squaring up with the other side of an equation, and they meet together.

And so if you have this side of the equation, God giving Thessalonians increase in faith and love, It's only fitting that this side of the equation, that Paul and Silas and Timothy give thanks, is what I'm trying to say here at point D. It squares up that Paul should be giving thanks for the Thessalonians, their faith being greatly enlarged and their love. And that's what we're gonna look at next here.

The Thessalonians' faith has been growing mightily, and that's what he says by being greatly enlarged. That word, there it is in the Greek, huperaxano, is what it is. It's just a word for growing, but I like blooming. I came up with that. The faith is blooming, and it's giving increase beyond measure. That's another definition of huperaxano. So then if we use the definition of faith from Hebrews 11, 1, we say their personal and collective faith of the Thessalonians, their personal and collective rest, trust, and reliance upon the Lord has been like a botanical garden of increase, is I think the force of what Paul is saying here. And that hupir oxano is a present active indicative. It's a verb.

And it's like I have this flower box on our deck, and my wife is out of town, and my job is to keep that alive. And it's going well. It's blooming. It's increasing. So it's good, because it was looking peaked a couple weeks ago. Now there's some more flowers down on the lower deck that I wasn't aware of, so those are completely dead. I'll probably get in trouble for that.

And here's their love, that Thessalonians' love is also growing. Same kind of thought Paul is using here, but he uses a different word, plezano, plezano. And that's a super abounding love, existing in abundance. And that's also a present active indicative. So, play Asano is this super abounding love.

So, because your faith is greatly enlarged, blooming, ever increasing, and the love of each one of you towards one another grows ever greater. And that's, we'll kind of look at that, but if you think of, The Lord's, Jesus' one command to the disciples, that you love one another, right? And he repeated that three times in John 12 through about 17 or more. And that was the main command, that you love one another.

Well, good news, the Thessalonians here are doing it. And notice that, notice how it's worded that, and this is just to kind of bring this out, that he addresses each one of the Thessalonian believers toward all the others. So that's interesting that it's each one of you toward one another. So it's very specific and it's very personal there.

And again, he calls them brethren, and we looked at that. He was always calling them brethren, and at first, that's a lot of words, wasn't it? This is all due to the, oh, I forgot to give you your pop quiz, and I went right beyond them, but I asked, why is this happening? Why is their faith and love waxing or ever-increasing?

And there I've given you the answer. I was gonna have you answer that, but it's the Holy Spirit, isn't it? It's the indwelling Holy Spirit. All in agree with that? Say it. And it was, oh, here it is, here's the point I was making. It was prophetic, right?

In Christ's words in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. And this leads to, by this, by your love for one another, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. And that's important.

That'll kind of come back in verse 5, we'll look at that. Okay, oh, here's a test I wanna give, or a comparison. So we're in 2 Thessalonians, opening statements here. We're gonna compare it to 1 Thessalonians, the opening thankfulness and prayer. Same kind of thing, but if you read 1 Thessalonians 1, two through four, we have, we give thanks to God always for you. always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren, loved by God, His choice of you, So if you just, and I have the two verses right there, verse three, where we are today, and first Thessalonians, and see if you can guess, see if you can make a comparison and see what's different about them.

There's a lot of difference, but one thing is very different. Well, one appears to be voluntary and the other is they're bound to. Okay, that's good. I'm looking for something else. That's good, but something that's missing, let's say. What is different? And there, I'll give you the answer.

It's a hope, right? Second Thessalonians doesn't have hope. First Thessalonians does. And that we study it, faith, love, and hope, and we went over that in First Thessalonians a lot, that I call it a trifecta. But hope is missing from faith and love. And one commentator, he calls it an ominous silence about hope. It was just interesting. Or it's a tripod, let's say, faith, love, and hope. It's not in 2 Thessalonians.

And we'll see that, this lesson, next week, the next week, we'll see why their hope has been missing here. And here, I'll give it to you, because I decided to give it to you here in this Part D. Sometimes I forget what I have in these notes, and then when I get to them, I'm like, oh, I've answered my question here. Second Thessalonians 2, 1 through 2, Paul says, and we'll get to that later on in the coming weeks, he says, now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter, as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. So they're a little vexed. Their composure is shaken. And he writes Second Thessalonians only, I think, in a matter of weeks. couple months, it's a very short time, that the second epistle follows the first.

And their hope was stripped in these matters, in a matter of weeks or months, wasn't it? And we'll learn later, and this is kind of looking ahead in this book, but a false teacher has come in, or they've gotten a false letter, or someone claiming they're from Paul. And so, they no longer have hope, which, as we kind of define here in this fellowship, as the absolute certainty in the things of God. And specifically, they no longer have the blessed hope of His coming because they're thinking, whoa, hey, we're in, and we'll get to this in verse five, but we're in this tribulation. What has happened? Are, you know, have we missed it? But before we get there, we go on to verse four.

And verse four says, therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God, for your precedence of faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions, which you endure. So therefore, I change that to, as a result of your growing faith and your ever-increasing love, or your blooming faith and super-abounding love, we can boast in you. The Amplified version has We mention you with pride to the other churches because of your blooming faith and super abounding love. indicating that the Holy Spirit is really alive in you, and you're really called for His purpose.

So I ask if it's righteous or right for, or is it sinful for Paul, Silas, and Timothy to boast about their work, or the Thessalonians, you know, is boasting a sin? I'll just let you think about that for a minute. Because it sounds like boasting is pride, doesn't it? Well, the verse that comes to mind is the one about boasting in the Lord. Seems to be the proper motive.

Yes, yes, and there you go, Roger, you get an A for this section of the class. But yeah, there's, in fact, you had taught, you might have taught in that in 1 Corinthians way back in the beginning, right? As doing in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. And then again in the second letter to the Corinthians in chapter 10, he says in verse 16, so as to preach the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been accomplished in the sphere of another, but he who boasts is to boast in the Lord.

And he says, for it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends. So this boasting in the work of God is a proper thing. And that's from, I think, Jeremiah 9. I didn't write down the reference, I don't think, but I think it's from Jeremiah 9, 24, has that quotation or something similar to it.

Okay, so he speaks proudly or boasts of the Thessalonians to the other churches, and then he says, for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. And the word for persevering is hupomeno. and there you have the Greek word, H-Y-P-O-N-E-N-O, and that might not be the right tense of it, that might be the noun form or the verb form, I'm not sure, but it was easier for me to read that. Hupomeno is the word, and that's patiently and steadfastly holding up under, or bearing up under, or bearing down under. And there's this little cartoon that was in this book on Thessalonians, and it had this very large ship in a storm, and you could see this gale force wind hitting it on the side, but yet the ship was still maintaining its course. And that's how we are to, and Thessalonians are to persevere under this persecution.

I've heard this before, I don't know where I heard this, but persecutions, trials, and tribulations, don't try to get out of them in the Christian life. The idea is to get under them. Hupomeno, and that's the idea there. You bear down under it, you get under it, you abide with Christ under, and you just hang out with him, right?

Next, the Thessalonicans were enduring these persecutions and afflictions, and that's the Greek word anecho, anecho, A-N-E-C-H-O, it's present, and you'll see it's a middle, so they're involved, and it personally involves them enduring, present, middle, indicative, So they're also enduring these afflictions. They were holding up under persecutions and afflictions, is what I have to state the obvious. Persecutions is the Greek word diogmos, and it's not so much like afflictions, which can be internal, Persecutions are from without, from other people coming in, and it really means in scripture to be religious persecution is how it's used. Diogomos.

Afflictions, that Greek word is afflipsis. And that, I say, again, to put a point on that is it's more of an internal pressure, crushing in on. I came up with it's like a vice tightening in on you. Afflipsis. So they've got the outward persecution and the inward afflictions. So they're really bearing down under it here.

Okay, but you can see that verses three and four were quite defunctory, and they make sense. But here's where I got a little stuck, here on verse five. And verse five goes, this is a plain indication of God's righteous judgments. so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which indeed you are suffering. And I read that quickly, you know, like a week and a half ago or so and said, okay. But then I was bothered because in plain English, it kind of reads to me that you Thessalonians, we are suffering and going through afflictions, and that's an indication that God is judging you to be worthy of the kingdom. And that's why you're suffering. If you read it, just read it there in English, and you're like, whoa.

And then I was trying to think, where have I, boy, I haven't, that's gonna be hard to teach, because I, I don't know if I agree with that, but does anyone else read it in plain English kind of like that? That judgment is coming on you and that you have to be considered worthy for the kingdom of God and you're suffering and it sounds like the Lord is kind of beating down the Thessalonians, doesn't it? Which is it talking about? Is it the witch? Is it talking about the patience and faith or the persecution and tribulations? Yes, yes, yes. That's exactly kind of the thing I had to wrestle with, Kathy. That's a good observation.

I was like, and if I knew Greek really well and I could match up even the genders and tried to get what modifies what you can get, I could say, all right, I could get to it, but it was really hard. So I'm just setting the background for this verse five, and that's a really good point. So let me kind of, I'm gonna set some background and like set the table for this verse and set it up really maybe nicely. It might be more confusing than it is, And I, in the last few weeks, I was just kind of hanging out in John 13, 14, 15, 16. I haven't gotten to John 17 yet, but just because I was trying to figure out what it meant to, that Christ said he would sanctify himself. And I was just sort of perplexed by that. So I was thinking about that.

But anyway, old F.W. Grant, he in his in his numerical Bible he gives of these chapters in John as sort of a background for this verse 5-2. And I said, oh, wow, okay. I understand that. Let me go with what he says. And I've been on that. So maybe it's the Holy Spirit saying, hey, tapping me and just saying, put this in here. So that's what I'm gonna do. And here's how this is set up. Most of it's from F.W. Grant. I added some things just to make this this point by point thing kind of clear.

Point number one, and there's 12 quick points, the world rejected Christ, point number one, and the world, his own people rejected him and did not receive him, and they crucified him, right? That's from the early part of chapter one of John. Christ was rejected here on earth, and he went to the cross. And that's obvious to us.

But at the cross, he secured salvation to all that believed, and he gave them the right to become the children of God. And that's, again, from John 1 and John 3, 16. The rest of the people, the rest who didn't receive him and believed on him, The rest rejecting him were left without excuse. God gave them over to themselves and their lusts. And the wrath of God is revealed against all these unrighteous and suppressors of the truth.

And I pulled that from Romans 1, that point number three. Christ was rejected here and he sanctified himself from the world Because you sanctify yourself from something to something. So I think that him sanctifying himself means that he separated himself from the world and he went to the Father. He went to heaven. He left the seed. He left it and he went to the Father, is what I say.

And that's John 13 and 14.3. He tells us that the world hates us because it hates him. And the world hates the father. He says that in John 15. He chose us out of the world and he is coming again to receive us. And that's a pre, he was discussing the rapture there in John 14. more of this point, kind of point by point proof here. Point seven, Christ promised us that we would be persecuted on account of our love for each other and that we are not of this world. And he says that very specifically in John 15, 21. And isn't that interesting that Paul is commending the Thessalonians for their love for one another, isn't he? So you see what I'm getting at? They have love for one another, and they're being persecuted. And isn't that right out of John 15?

And then we ourselves here in this day and age will be persecuted, not because of who we are, but as Christ says, for his namesake, for my namesake, and because they do not know me, John 15, 22. But in leaving the world, having judged it, and judged Satan as well at the cross, he says in John 16, he left us a comforter.

And that, of course, is the Holy Spirit. So this is where I pick up F.W. Grant's sort of thoughts. We are in the church age, and we belong to his heavenly kingdom. and we belong to him, but being here on earth, we are still here on earth, and we are representing him, and we have that indwelling Holy Spirit, right? And the Holy Spirit, his ministry here on earth to the unbelieving world is to convict the world of sin because they believe not on Christ. And that he, the Holy Spirit, convicts the world of righteousness because he left the world to go to the Father. And the third thing he convicts the world of is concerning judgment, because the ruler of Satan has been judged. And that's John 16, 10 through 11.

So the Holy Spirit is busy doing this stuff. uh this conviction and he's in us and we don't really these are spiritual things going on and i i think we have a glimpse of it but we don't know the totality of these clashing of christ or the holy spirit and satan and these two worlds battling each other is kind of the point I'm kind of getting to. There's a double rejection, this final point. The world rejected Christ and now the world is rejecting the Holy Spirit. Well, where's the Holy Spirit? It's present in us, it's present in the church body.

So, there is that kind of just setting that up and that can help us with this verse. It might help us with later verses too. With this in mind, are the Thessalonians here in suffering in order to be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, are they working for it? Because you see that in the new American standard, so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God.

And that's where I was having kind of some issues, and I was like, well, because it's clunky, and the word is katasio. There's the Greek word, katasio. And it's a fact, it's passive, and it means to declare or to deem or count as worthy. Kind of like to reckon in Romans 6. You know, we are counted as dead to sin and alive to Christ. So it's a fact.

The King James better renders, verse five is, which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which ye suffer. And I like that, I don't like that plain indication that the New American Standard has, I like that manifest token. So Keith Lee says that, That katasi a'o up there, point B, does not mean to make worthy, in his commentary. And F.W. Grant's suffering, like working, was not title to acceptance or title to the kingdom.

That was secured by grace. Your entrance into the kingdom is secured by grace. That's what he tells the Philippians. Or if you think of Colossians 1.13 that we've been rescued from the domain of darkness or this kingdom and we've been transferred to his kingdom and so we're just transferred into it. Heathley, again, says that their endurance demonstrates their worthiness, not to enter the kingdom, which can only be granted by faith in Christ, but to share in the rule and reign of Christ as promised in other places. And then he gives Revelation 3, 1, 2, 26, and 2 Timothy 2, 12. If we endure, we will also reign with him. And that really lines up nicely with Verse four that we looked at previously here in this book and also this verse five They're enduring they're gonna reign with them. But this they're members of the kingdom already. They're not having to Secure it by Trying to bring about the kingdom That's not what's that? in view here.

My last point here is the Manifest Token. Also, instead of plain indication that I said I don't like, another, I'm not sure if, the Amplified maybe has that translated as the positive proof of God's righteous judgment. Is that your suffering? And it just demonstrates the fact of our worthiness for the kingdom. We are currently suffering and during, I'm just trying to read my own point here.

From the world, I have a little typo there that I'll correct. But anyway, I like using manifest token. So we have this proof that since the Holy Spirit is in us, we're getting persecuted and it might be, it's sort of the spiritual things going on. between Satan and the Lord, but we're involved in it because we are of, not of this world, but we're heavenly citizens, aren't we?

One last point here for this morning is Satan's methodology with the Thessalonians. First, in the first epistle to the Thessalonians, he agitated them on the security of the dead loved ones that were gonna miss out on the return of Christ, wasn't he? And he kinda cleared up that error in the first letter.

Now, he went on, since Paul kind of answered that, then he went on to agitate the Thessalonians he orientated them to the old law and the prophet's view of the day of the Lord, which is, and it's all over the Old Testament, darkness, day of gloom, doom, and it's tribulation, and so the Jews know this, and the Stethalonikons, a lot of them came out from being affiliated with the Jewish system, so they had that in mind. So you could see how they were kind of unmoored from the blessed hope that they did have. But here in this second epistle, Paul gives them a heavenly, Christward hope. In chapter 4, he gives them that hope of Christ returning for them with their dead loved ones, but they were moved away from that hope. And Satan even took some professing Christians, brought them into this fellowship, maybe name-dropping Paul, and convinced the Thessalonians that the day of the Lord had truly come. And it was here, and it was so stealthy that they didn't see it. Now they're in the throes of this divine judgment. And they're there, and the Lord's not rescuing them. What's up? They're a little worried. I think this is... Where did I get that? Point number five, I'm just trying to remember the source that I got that from.

But the enemy is to draw the believer back to the law if he cannot entice people to lawlessness. instead of letting the Thessalonians rejoice in the bridegroom coming for his bride. And in chapter two of this epistle, he's gonna talk about the mystery of lawlessness and the man of lawlessness. So thus, Satan had perverted their enjoyment of their own proper hope and robbed them of the patience of hope. So it is this error that Paul will iron out in this epistle, specifically in chapter 2, when he goes back to the subject of the coming of the Lord for them.

So, that's it. Hopefully that's kind of clear and that made that verse clear to me. I know it's a lot but I hope and maybe you started out by not being confused like I was this past week. Maybe you knew all this all along. Who knows? But any thoughts?

Well, it seems to me that Paul is trying to help them by them facing reality, what reality really is. Right, yeah. As Roy often says, you know, yeah, there's reality, there's the realness of things is kind of beyond this world, you know. Yeah, and he's exposing them to the spiritual warfare that's going on. And you really see that now, at this day, right now, what's going on in this country, the spiritual warfare going on. Something's afoot, I would say. There's a couple things that might be helpful here. Andrew, is it loud enough? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. One of the things that came to my mind in going over this is that in Philippians it says that we are called to suffer. Yeah.

In the Acts it says that when they left under the persecution of the Sadducees that their judgment was don't speak in the name of Christ. or about Christ, they left rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer that. But then there's this other thing that we have learned together here at Hollow Hills, and that is, when we are dependent on the Holy Spirit, we are in effect saying, for me to live is Christ. And that is pointed out by your points here, that Satan wants us to go back under the law if he can't get us to go under lawlessness so that we look at ourselves and we get approved by men for the good deeds that we're doing. Yeah.

Versus the work of Christ being alive in us manifesting his love towards one another is the opposite of what everyone else would do and brings criticism and persecution How can you love them? Well, because I love them because God loves them. And the contrast is black and white. Yeah.

And cannot be understood by the world around us. Yeah, oh that's excellent Roy, yeah thanks. I think I came, I think I touched on in my study that Philippians, but it's just such a big, I mean this is a big, but it's going to be kind of work itself out because first of all when I kind of glanced over what I was supposed to study I didn't do the first thing you should do is that and that is to read on and then things become kind of clear you know. One of the things that I learned early on was one of the weaknesses we have as a human from our nature is just tell me what to do and I'll do it.

Yeah right. God says, no, let me live my life through you and just enjoy it. Yeah. That was my exact words to my dad many years ago, maybe two decades ago. Dad, just give me five, five just, I have this identification stuff, just give me five points. What does it boil down to? I'll do those and then I'll have this figured out. I never got the five, the list of five things. I remember me asking, just, I wanted that little list and I never got it.

So anyway, yeah, it's a big, big subject, but, and it just, he plops that right in verse, but it's a transitional verse, so I think it'll come clear. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Good job, Andrew, that's great. It's good to go through your thought process. And it's just, yeah, it's nice being kind of vexed, because then you, question and then you panic a little and then you figure things out. So teaching is more for the teacher and not so much for the class. Amen. Yeah. All right.

Well, I'll close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we could study this verse, and we look forward to the rest of studying about the day of the Lord and the day of judgment. And we just thank you that we're delivered from all the wrath that you're going to bring on the world. And we thank you for that in Christ's name. Amen.