Thessalonians 5:12-28

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you, 13 and to regard them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. 14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray constantly, 18 give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Don’t stifle the Spirit. 20 Don’t despise prophecies, 21 but test all things. Hold on to what is good. 22 Stay away from every kind of evil.

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will do it. 25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us also. 26 Greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss. 27 I charge you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers and sisters. 28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Paul was the original church planter, he would go around and start churches in towns.

Paul was always a planter, a starter, he would get things to a stable place and then leave and move on to the next town or city that God had provided for him.

He would grow leaders and sometimes leave one of his friends behind to lead those churches.

Paul wanted to make sure that each church had leaders who had been equipped, enabled and empowered with the Holy spirit.

The first thing that Paul would do was build relationships with people, he would work along side them, they would truly “do life together”

You might wonder why this is so important, well lets think about that, Paul emulated the life that Jesus did, and he was humble in doing so.

Paul is truly the Biblical poster child for life change, he wasn’t always this guy who wanted to had a kingdom mindset. Paul, formerly Saul, was a tax collector, he was not a fan of Christians, he actually went out of his way and did everything he could to stop the spread of the Gospel message. Jesus was in constant pursuit of Saul. Saul was living in the dark, he did everything in his power to ignore what Jesus wanted him to do. So much so that Jesus took his sight, he made “burning bushes” talk to him, Saul wasn’t willing at first, I could not imaging that exact process. But man I can definitely testify to the power of God to change our lives when we learn to put the needs and desires of others before our own. Saul had everything that anyone would have desired in that time and in the end, he denied it all, in the book of Philipians we see Paul now say that all of his past achievements were now rubbish. Paul realized that his identity was not in either his success’ or his failures in Philipians we see Paul count all of that as rubbish he now found his hope in the only place we can get it in Jesus,

Paul wrote this last part of his letter to the church in Thessalonica to persuade them to do good, there is a big churchy word in there when you really dive into this scripture- Paraenesis, and that is style of writing meant to persuade those who are reading it do do good.

the book of 1 Thessalonians can be looked at as a reminder of how we should live, the process of sanctification. Sanctification is a progressive work of God to make us as believers more like Jesus. As we are being set free from our slavery to sin, "the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life" (). we see that in the book of Romans Ch6 v22-23

22 But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the outcome is eternal life! 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And as we saw lat week:

As we discussed last week we are no longer living in the darkness we are living in the light. when we remember this, it allows us to better understand what we find in the book of thessalonians.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you,

v12. recognize those who lead you, the work isn’t easy and they do it out of love. This is important because when we don’t have a relationship with the leaders in our church, we cant pray for you, we want to walk along side you in your times of need. We want to see you healthy and grow closer to God.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

13 and to regard them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves

They work hard to further the kingdom of God. Be at peace among yourselves.

Think about this in every relationship we have, with our families, our church families and with our co-workers, we can take that even a step further and look at fellow residents in our cities, in our state, in our nation, and throughout the world. What is the result of our lives and our interactions with one another when we don’t get along, they are usually not very enjoyable for us or anyone involved for that matter. Husbands and wives, it is never beneficial when we are not at peace in our marriages, and the results of that are far reaching. Kids, be at peace with your parents, the results of us not getting along are far reaching and very devastating.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

exhort- strongly encourage or urge (someone) to do something

warn those who are idle

what tends to happen when we are idle, our minds wonder and we get distracted, and that doesn’t normally result in positive things, it shows that we are undisciplined, we blow things off and dont take them as seriously as we should.

Comfort the discouraged

when you are having that Monday or you have had a week filled of Mondays, what do we do? we tend to get frustrated, we tend to get down ourselves, and that isn’t what Jesus showed us we needed to do in our times of need. We are shown again time and time again that there is a need for relationship. A healthy Christ centered relationship. We see in Matthew 11, Jesus tells us to give him our burdens, we don’t need to carry that burden. we aren’t made to carry these things.

Matthew 11:28-30

28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Help the weak

What did we see Jesus do in his short time on earth, he always helped those who were considered to be weak, he met them where they were and he treated them no differently than anyone else.

Be patient with everyone.

wow, lets thank about this, patient, patience, parents how does this work for us when our kids just do what we ask when we ask.? Husbands, wives, how often do we do loose our patienece with one another? it usually results in nothing moving forward and frustration on everyones part. Lets go back to v13 be at peace among yourselves, it all builds upon itself.

Lets think about patience, lets think about it a little different context, when was the last time you weren't in a hurry to do something. Our marriages our kids they dont make us inpatient thay just reveal it to us. In-Patience is driven by the tyranny of our own agendas. It is a selfish and unloving expression that says, my time is more important than yours, my agenda is more important, I am more important.. That isnt true at all.

if we look at the fruits of the spirit if we dont have patince we most likely dont have joy, peace, gentelness kindness self control, it can be the ultimate disruptor of everything.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

15 See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

15 See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all.

See to it that no one

See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone.. Pursue what is good for one another and all.

This really hit home for me this week. My dad called me this week, now I want to tell you a bit about him, my dad is not a believer, he calls church - that thing you do on Sunday.. He and I have struggled off and on with our relationship for a number of years. I caught an ear full of the things that I hadn’t done since I moved here to Vegas. Well was my first thought when it came to response, I am going to lash right back out at him.. Would that have really solved anything? That may be what the world tells me to do, but that sure would not have been beneficial it would have made the situation that much worse. We out of our worldly nature tend to look at it in such a way where it is always tit for tat, if you do that I’m going to do this. Think of the number of times we can catch ourselves with this chain of actions.

Always pursue what is good for one another.

dont be self serving but be a servant to one another by doing what is good for all.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray constantly, 18 give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Rejoice always

not everything is going to be easy not everything is going to be as we think it should be, we are reminded of this in

10 as grieving, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet enriching many; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Pray constantly

When we are in need is your first response to pray to God?is it to ask for help for guidance. I remind you that praying to God is one of the two easiest ways we have to strengthen our relationship, the second being spending time in the word. God wants to have a relationship with each one of us.

give thanks for everything

It doesn't matter what it is we need to be thankful, thankful for the smallest blessing and the largest of blessings. We have top humble ourselves in so many ways.

for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus

When we do these things, when we live this way we will find that we have eternal life

1John 2:17

17 And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.

Don’t stifle the spirit

we are completely dependent on the spirit, the helper to see us through these dealings, we arent able to do it ourselves.

Dont despise prophecies

be mindful of what you are being told will occur

But test all things. Hold on to what is good

focus on what we know is right

we are to look at everything every situation that we are confronted with through the lense of the gospel, does it honor God. When we do this we can know that all of

Stay away from every kind of evil

the more we are desensitized to evil the more apt we are to accept it, we arent able to solely on our own avoid it. I could imagine that line from a few good men changed from, you cant handle the truth to you can’t handle the evil

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 5

We are 100% dependent on God to carry us through this it

These things are all a set of things that we need to do to live together. There is an urgency that Paul exhibits here, it really becomes rapid fire, do these things don’t do these others and in the, pray rejoice.. so what was the urgency, the urgency that we have here is not that it is just a letter but it is what we saw last week. The day of the lord is coming. But we saw in Chapter 4 Paul new the church was showing each other brotherly, it was more of a warning about the potential for conflict that comes from not being patient not helping the weak.

So why is this so important? Mom’s and dad’s how many times have you said?

Can you just get along?

Pay attention

Just because they do it doesnt mean you should?

Did you say thank you?

if they don’t behave you shouldn’t hang out with them, or you shouldn’t play with them.

Paul is purely reminding us that Jesus while on earth gave us an example of how to live, we all are called to live more and more like Jesus did while on earth, this is what Paul did after his conversion we need to live that same life while we wait for Jesus return

So lets just take one of these and focus on it during the week. Repay evil with evil. How many of you is your first response to repay evil with evil. This can take many forms, they say im being too loud, well im going to be loud. that guy is bugging me with his driving, well im going to slow down, that will show them. somebody speaks to you in a tone you don’t like so you are rude back to them.

As we pray I want us each to ask God to help us and bring him closer to him so that we can live lives that more closely resemble his.

Father God,

we love you, we thank you for your wisdom,

we thank you for your abundant provision

as we enter in to this week, we ask that you be with us, that you help us to put off our old selves

allow us to be confident in who you have made us to be, that you grow us. this week when we are in

the world, let us not show the behaviors the that show the world, but as you have set us apart, you

have made us different, allow us to show that in all we do. When our first response is anger, help us to

replace that with love, we know that it won’t be easy, but we know that you are here for us all day

everyday. It is in your presciuos sons name we pray- amen

Communion, as we prepare for to take communion today, I want to read fro m the book of Here we find Jesus teaching in the synagogue in Capernum

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6

53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves. 54 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, 55 because my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the manna your ancestors ate—and they died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”

This is what we see:

51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52 At that, the Jews argued among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Christian Standard Bible. (2017). (). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

Celebrating communion marks the story of Jesus, how He gave Himself completely to give us a better life, a new start, and a fresh relationship with God. Its not about ritual.

if you are a believer come up to the front and get the elements, if you are not a believer, we look forward to the day that you are amongst us and are ready to come to the table with us. If you want to know more about what those next steps are or are ready to take them, i ask that you find robin, josh or myself after the service we would love to walk along side you during that process.

the table is now open,

At the Last Supper, Jesus took the bread and broke it and said, “Take, eat. This is my body broken for you. As often as you take it, remember Me.” Please eat the bread at this time.

the wine- his blood spilled out for us

Then again on that same night, Jesus took the wine and blessed it, then said, “Take, drink. This is the cup of the New Covenant in my blood. As often as you drink it, remember Me.” Please drink the juice at this time.

do this in remebarance of me

Father God, we thank you for all that you have done for us. the sacrifice that you have made for us, allow us to be closer to you today we thank you for the grace you have sowed us, we

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