Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.
We're so glad you're here and we hope this message inspires you,
builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.
Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible
and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.
So welcome and enjoy the message.
If you have your Bibles, open them to 1 Thessalonians chapter 3.
We're going to continue our verse-by-verse study of the book of 1 Thessalonians.
Now, the church at Thessalonica was made up of new believers that the apostle Paul had
recently led to Christ.
And Paul has this deep desire and concern for them to grow up in their faith.
In fact, five times in this chapter, Paul uses the phrase, your faith, because
that you would be established in your faith,
that you would be strengthened in your faith,
that you would be encouraged in your faith,
that you would mature in your faith.
Now, in the Bible, there's a difference
between the faith and your faith.
The faith are the fundamental doctrines
of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They are objective.
They are fixed.
But your faith is trusting God
in the everyday circumstances of your life.
And our faith grows when we apply the faith,
what we know about God in the gospel,
to our emotions and to our circumstances.
Did you know that God wants you to grow up
in your faith.
God wants you to mature and to learn to trust Him
at a deeper and deeper level.
Now the problem in the American church
is that we have too many babes in Christ,
too many kids in Christ, too many teenagers in Christ,
and not enough grownups in Christ.
And so in love this morning,
I wanna challenge you to grow up
Now, not to beat us up, but to build us up.
Not to call us out, but to call us up.
You see, by God's grace, you can be so much more than you are.
And so can I.
We want to grow in our relationship with Christ.
We want to grow in our faith.
And I think all of us want that.
Remember, the disciples asked Jesus,
"'Jesus, increase our faith.'"
We all want a deeper and stronger and more robust faith,
but how do we do it?
Well, Paul gives us four ways
that you can grow your faith in this chapter.
Let's begin reading in verse number one.
He says, therefore,
when we could no longer endure it,
we thought it good to be left in Athens alone
and sent Timothy, our brother and minister of God,
and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ
to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith.
Now, the Thessalonican church was experiencing persecution.
In fact, Paul had to flee Thessalonica because of the persecution that broke out there.
And so Paul was concerned that these new believers would begin to doubt the goodness of God because of the suffering that they were facing.
And so he sends Timothy to strengthen them and encourage them to trust in God.
the Lord. Here's the first way you can grow in your faith.
Get relationally connected to mature
Christians. See, Paul says, I'm sending
Timothy to you, who's a mature believer, so that he can
strengthen and encourage you in your faith. And
to grow in our faith, we need to be connected to God
But we also need to be connected to others who love God and love us.
He calls Timothy a brother.
God has given us a spiritual family to love us.
And that love enhances and strengthens our relationship with God.
We all need to love and we all need to be loved.
Clara Noll, mother from Oklahoma City, wrote this,
It was one of the worst days of my life.
The washing machine broke down, the telephone kept ringing,
I had a headache, and then the mailman brought a bill I had no money to pay.
Almost at a breaking point, I lifted my one-year-old into his high chair,
leaned my head against the tray, and began to cry.
Without a word, my son took his pacifier out of his mouth
and stuck it in mine.
You know, from the time we are born, even at one year old,
we know people need to be loved.
And we also know that we need to be loved and to be cared for.
And so by God's grace, let's make this church the warmest incubator of the love of Christ that we possibly can.
Amen.
so that babies in Christ can grow to maturity
in an atmosphere of brotherly love.
God didn't just save us and leave us alone.
He caused us to be born into a spiritual family
with mature believers who can love us.
He also says Timothy is a minister of God.
God has given us a community to support us.
Now when we get connected to a life group
and we begin to live out our relationship with Christ
in fellowship with one another,
what we are saying is I want to be connected to people
who love the right things
and help me to love the right things as well.
God is not only building us up individually,
but he's building us up together
so that we as a church can spread the gospel
to our city and beyond.
He says, Timothy is a brother, he's a minister,
but then he says he's a fellow laborer in the gospel.
God has not only given us a family to love us,
a community to support us,
but also a team to come alongside us.
Every Christian is a minister, and every Christian is a missionary.
What that means is that what God wants to do,
he wants to do through everyone in this room who knows Jesus.
He doesn't just want to do it through me.
He doesn't just want to do it through the leaders.
He wants to do it through everyone who knows Christ
and has the Holy Spirit residing in them.
You see, our collective mission is,
is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in every place
and to every person.
Paul is pointing out that being connected to mature believers who trust
God strengthens you
so that you can walk away with your heart encouraged
knowing that God loves you, that God is going to give you the grace and the
strength that you need to face the situations that you have within your
life. Notice what he says in verse number three. He says that no one should be shaken by these
afflictions. For you yourself know that we are appointed to this.
For in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation just as it is happening, and you know.
For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith,
lest by some means the tempter had tempted you and our labor might be in vain.
The Apostle Paul was concerned that they would be shaken,
they would be unsettled.
And Paul says, you shouldn't be shook by suffering,
it's to be expected.
You know, we are not exempt from difficulties.
The Apostle Paul was sick, the Lord Jesus was poor.
Suffering is to be expected.
Now of all people, Christians should not be surprised
by suffering because we know that evil exists.
We know that we live in a broken world, and we know why.
And so suffering does not contradict the Bible.
Suffering confirms the Bible.
Now, the Bible teaches two truths that you and I need to remember in times of suffering.
The first is that life is hard, and boy, is that true.
But the second is that God is good, and boy, is that true as well.
I'm so glad that God is good and gracious and present and willing and capable in our
times of suffering.
And so don't be surprised when you suffer within your life.
You can't avoid suffering, but you can prepare for it and you can be strengthened by it.
And so here's the second way to grow your faith.
Allow suffering to transfer your trust from yourself
and your circumstances to God.
The apostle Paul says, you knew this was going to come.
You've been appointed to this.
You see suffering is not an accident, it's an appointment.
It's not that God causes all of our suffering,
but it is that God uses all of our suffering.
Suffering is a part of God's plan
and God's purpose to grow your faith.
And everything that happens to you
has been Father-filtered,
and he has allowed it to purify you
and to grow you, not to punish you.
Now, if you and I,
had never suffered,
we would probably be pretty terrible people, wouldn't we?
I mean, imagine if God answered every prayer you pray,
yes, how horrible that would make us,
because suffering teaches us to depend on God
and not upon ourselves or our circumstances.
That's why our faith grows more in pain
than it does in pleasure.
Now, what is most important
is how you posture your heart in suffering.
Suffering reveals our heart.
God already knows our heart,
but sometimes he needs to show us what's in there
so that we can grow in our character.
And so the question is, do you have a hard heart
or do you have a tender heart?
Now, the way that we respond to our suffering
can make everything worse
Sometimes so much of our suffering is the way we suffer,
the way we respond to our suffering.
It makes it exponentially worse.
But also the way we respond can also make it better.
It can make everything better.
Because your suffering will either make you bitter
or it will make you better.
But here's the good news.
You can choose.
You can choose how you want to respond to
to suffering. Now, one of the worst things that you can do while suffering
is to compare yourself to other people and play the victim card. I mean, don't we like to do that?
Guess what? Nobody wins in that game.
Everyone loses, but especially you.
That will not make you better,
but it will certainly make you bitter.
And so the question is not why am I suffering?
I remember when my dad was dying of cancer,
I said to him, I said,
"'Dad, I don't know why this is happening to you.'
And he looked at me and he says, "'Why not me?'
He knew that suffering is a part of life.
Did you know that everyone you know and love is going to die?
Suffering is a part of this world.
Our hope is not freedom for suffering.
Our hope is in Christ who will someday deliver us from suffering.
That's what our hope is.
And so the question is not why am I suffering?
The question is how does God want to use suffering in my life and in the life of others?
Now Paul says, I wanted to hear what was going on
because lest the tempter tempt you.
Now the devil wants to use your suffering to destroy you.
to destroy your faith.
But God wants to use your suffering to develop you
and to develop your faith,
to teach you to depend upon him more,
to teach you to seek him more, to pray more,
to study his word more, to witness more,
and to grow the fruit of the Spirit within your life.
Notice what the apostle Paul says in verse number six.
He says,
For now we live if you stand fast in the Lord.
For what thanks can we render to God for you,
for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God,
night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face
and perfect what is lacking in your faith.
Paul says, I was encouraged by your love and your faith in the midst of suffering.
And then he says, I want to come to you so that I can help mature your faith.
Now, you know what you call that?
You call that discipleship.
Discipleship is growing in your love and faith.
and helping others grow in their love and faith.
And so here's the third way that you can grow your faith.
Learn from what God is doing in the life of other people.
Hearing about what God is doing in other people's lives
encourages us to pursue God more
and to trust God more.
We think, well, if God did that in their life,
then he can do it in mine.
Or we learn what God is teaching them within their life,
and you go, boy, I need to grow in that area as well.
I need to grow in humility.
I need to grow in love.
I need to grow in surrender to the Lord.
And if God's doing it in their life,
he can do it in mine as well.
You know, one of the great apologetics
for the Christian faith is,
is people's willingness to suffer for Christ.
How did we get from 12 disciples to a billion?
Simple – suffering.
People were willing to suffer for the sake of Christ, and other people saw that and they
said, God has done something great.
within their life.
God is real because they are able to see it
in the faith and the suffering of others.
In 1 Peter, Peter tells us that you and I as believers
are living stones.
In the Old Testament,
when God did something great somewhere,
they would put a big pile of stones in that place
where God did something great to remind them.
And what they would say is, look, God did something great in that place.
And so when Peter says that you and I are living stones,
what he is saying is that we are supposed to say to other people,
God did something great in my life.
I am a testimony to God's glory and God's grace.
And so you are to be a person where people look at your life and they said, look what
great things God has done in their life.
Look at the transformation and the love and the faith and the perseverance and the humility
that that person has.
God surely is among us.
You see, our suffering is an opportunity to point others to the grace and the power of
Christ, but it depends on how we respond to our suffering.
We can respond in one of three ways.
We can respond by exaggerating our suffering.
You know, woe is me, kind of a spiritual case of the man flu.
Well, that's a bad example.
That's real suffering right there, you know.
But we can kind of exaggerate sometimes, ladies,
and we're all capable of exaggerating.
I'm the only one who's ever suffered.
I'm the only one who's ever gone through this.
I heard about some Boy Scouts.
They were up in the mountains and boy,
they were getting eaten up by mosquitoes,
just all over the place.
And so they thought we've got to get away
from these mosquitoes.
And so they decided we're gonna get in our sleeping bags
and we're gonna zip them up to get away.
And so they all got in their sleeping bags.
And about that time, some fireflies,
some lightning bugs came out.
And one of the boys says, boys, it's no use.
Now they have flashlights.
They're looking for us.
We can exaggerate our suffering, can't we?
We can exaggerate the situation.
Instead of looking to God, we look to our circumstances.
Do you remember Elijah after he called down fire from heaven?
Jezebel says, I'm going to hunt you down.
I'm going to kill you.
And he's running for his life.
And finally he says to God, just kill me.
I'm the only one that's serving you.
And God says, no, I have 7,000 others that love me and trust me and are following after me.
Now notice, Elijah got into the comparison trap, didn't he?
He was comparing himself to other people.
Instead of looking to God, he looked to others.
And he exaggerated the situation.
And we can do that in our suffering as well.
But also, we can respond in anger to our suffering, right?
Remember Job's wife, she said, just curse God and die.
She was angry.
Now, anger becomes bitterness real quick, doesn't it?
And we use our pain to push God away, and instead of allowing God to use our pain to draw us closer to Him,
to transfer our trust from ourselves and our circumstances to Him.
Now, the third way we can respond is we can respond by trusting the Lord.
You know, Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
And so we are to take our suffering and use it to turn the spotlight on to Jesus.
And the emphasis is I can't believe what God has done in my life,
and I love telling others about it.
I want everyone to know how gracious and good and sufficient God really is.
And notice what he says in verses 10 through 13.
He says, "'Night and day, praying exceedingly, that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith.'"
Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you.
And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and to all,
just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints."
The Apostle Paul
ends the chapter with a prayer for these new believers.
You know that God uses our prayers
to strengthen our faith?
God uses our prayers to strengthen
the faith of others as well.
And so here's the fourth way to grow your faith.
Ask others to pray for you.
Prayer is absolutely powerful.
And all of us can do it.
You don't have to have money.
You don't have to have talent.
You don't have to have hair.
You can just pray.
All you have to do is have faith.
That's it.
And Paul says, I'm praying that God
would strengthen your faith.
Now Paul prays for four things.
In verse 10, he prays for their maturity.
He says, I want to come to you and perfect what is lacking.
That word perfect is the word for maturity.
He says, I want to come and pray
and be a part of you maturing in your faith.
We should pray for our faith
and the faith of others to grow and to mature.
Do you know that your faith can grow?
Your faith can deepen.
You can have this sense of peace that God is in control of your life,
that God is working all things together for his glory and your good,
and that you don't have to worry about it all.
You can just surrender it all to God in faith.
You can grow.
And I try to pray almost every day for God to grow my faith.
for God to grow the faith of each of my family members,
for God to grow the faith of Valley Baptist Church.
The second thing he prays for in verse 11 is he prays for direction.
He says that God would direct our way to you.
I want to encourage you to pray every morning,
Holy Spirit, I surrender this day to you.
Would you direct my day?
Would you direct my heart to give me a heart after your own heart?
Would you direct my mind that I would think your thoughts and that I would know your word,
that it would be a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path?
Would you direct my plans?
Not my will, but your will be done.
Would you direct and give me wisdom for every decision and every interaction that I have throughout the day?
And so submit your plans and everything else to the Holy Spirit each and every morning.
And then you pray for the Holy Spirit to direct the lives of other people as well.
The third thing he prays for in verse 12 is love.
He said that your love would increase and it would abound.
You see, we should pray that our love will grow deeper and that it would expand further.
That we would have a deeper love and that we would have a broader love.
Now sometimes when we're suffering, we build walls, don't we?
And so the Apostle Paul says,
I am praying that God would develop your love
in such a way that instead of building walls,
that your suffering would build bridges,
that you would not waste your sorrows,
but that you would use your sorrows for the Lord
and to be a blessing in other people's lives.
I guarantee you, whatever suffering you're going through,
someone else is going through as well.
And I guarantee you, whatever suffering you've experienced, someone else is going to go through,
and you can encourage and strengthen their faith in the midst of that suffering.
The last thing that the apostle prays for is their affections.
In verse 13, he says that God would establish your heart.
You see, we are to have deep affections and emotions for God and for His Word.
God says that you are to love God with all your mind, and I hope that you do that.
But He also says you are to love God with all your heart, with your volition, with your affection.
Now, our affections are that which we love.
And so we are to have deep love and affection for God
and for His word within our life.
I remember when I got right with God as a teenager,
boy, God got a hold of my heart
and He did something great in my heart.
He just gave me this deep desire
and this insatiable hunger to know Him.
I began to read my Bible every day.
I began to seek God in prayer.
I began to listen to about 10 or 15 hours
of sermons every week.
I had a little Walkman and I knew a lot of pastors
with cassettes.
If you don't know what that is, you're young.
But we had cassettes.
I put those suckers in and while I was working,
I would listen to God's word all the time.
I went to every worship service I could,
listened to every sermon I could,
every Bible study I could attend,
every service opportunity.
I wanted to be involved because I wanted to know God
and I wanted to follow God.
You know, I haven't lost that desire.
I still have that desire today
There are some people who say, well, that's the way new believers are.
But after a while, you just lose that love and that faith that you once had for the Lord.
There's a Greek word for that, hogwash.
Actually, that's not a Greek word.
It's nonsense, right?
Here's what happens.
You have this fire and love and faith
and passion for the Lord
as long as you keep saying yes to God.
But as soon as you say no to the Lord,
you stop growing because your love and your trust
stop at the point you say no.
God convicts you about how you treat your wife.
And you say, no, God.
You say, Lord, I love this sin more than I love you,
and I trust my way of how I treat my wife more than your way of how you want me to treat my wife.
God convicts you.
of the bitterness in your heart.
He convicts you to forgive someone who's deeply hurt you and wronged you.
And you say, no, God, I love this bitterness more than I love you.
I love this way of bitterness more than I love your way and trust your way of forgiveness.
Now, there have been times in my life where that was me.
And I stopped growing.
And there are a whole lot of Christians that are at the same place they were six months ago,
a year ago, five years ago, 20 years ago,
because at some point in their life, they told God,
no, when the conviction of the Holy Spirit came,
they said, no, I'm going to do it my way instead of your way.
I'm going to love this sin more than I love you.
And so they didn't grow.
And there are some Christians that have lost even the ability to recognize the moving of the Holy Spirit within their heart.
Because their heart has grown hard and it's grown cold.
And maybe they go through the motions and they come to church and they do all of these things on the outside.
But they're not loving and trusting God on the inside.
And so they just stay a babe in Christ.
They don't really grow up.
They're just stuck.
But here's the good news.
You can say yes to the Lord today.
And when you do, the flood of that love and that faith and that passion and that fire can come back.
The glory that has faded can return to your life to say,
God, I'm going to love you and I'm going to trust you with all of my heart.
And notice in this prayer, it's not about your ability.
It's about your availability and it's about God's abilities.
God is the one who establishes you.
God is the one who directs you.
God is the one who strengthens your heart.
You need to be connected to God.
So let me ask you this morning,
would you say, Lord, today, I surrender all to you?
I'm tired of holding on.
I'm tired of saying no.
I'm tired of doing it my way instead of your way.
I'm weary with the boredom of a life
that is being lived for myself and my circumstances.
I want to say yes to anything and everything
that you want to do in my life.
Surrender it all to the Lord
because it's time.
to grow up. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you for your goodness
and your grace. God thank you for
all that you've done and all that you're
wanting to do. God I pray this morning that you would grow us
in our faith, that we would trust you, that we would love you,
And God, as we have a time of invitation here in just a moment,
God, I pray that you would draw our hearts to yourself.
Lord, I pray that we would be tired of mediocrity, of stagnation.
And God, that we would desire to follow you and surrender to you.
God, I pray that you would help us to get connected to other believers that love you
and are following you.
I pray that you would help us to ask others to pray that our faith would grow strong and
robust.
God, I pray that we would transfer our trust from ourselves and our circumstances to you.
And God, I pray that you would give us the grace and the wisdom to learn from what you're
doing in other people's lives.
So Lord, work in this time of invitation.
Draw our hearts to you.
In Christ's name we pray.
Amen.
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No matter where you are in your journey,
know that we love you, we're praying for you
and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.