Three Things True of Authentic Christians (1 Thes 1:3):
- Authentic Christians have a Faith that WORKS .
- Authentic Christians have a Love that LABORS .
- Authentic Christians have a Hope that ENDURES .
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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Open up your Bibles with me please to the book of 1 Thessalonians.
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And be in the back of your New Testament, 1 Thessalonians.
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And I know different churches have different philosophies of ministry and sort of do things in a different way.
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And at Harvest Bible Chapel, what we do is we like to go through a book of the Bible.
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and let the word of God speak for itself.
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I understand that I don't sit in my office through the week and think, I wonder what the people would want to hear.
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I wonder what I can tell them that would fire them up.
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I don't try to imagine what I think you want to hear.
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I know what God wants to proclaim.
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He wants his word proclaimed.
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So we are starting today a journey through the book of 1 Thessalonians.
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The Lord has a lot of things He wants to teach us through this amazing book.
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And today, to get us started, we're just going to be looking at the first three verses.
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Okay?
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Everybody there?
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1 Thessalonians 1.
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Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you, and peace.
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Who's Silvanus? That's Silas.
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That's just another name for Silas.
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He heard Paul and Silas, that's the other name for him.
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And Paul writes, "We give thanks to God always, "for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, "remembering before our God and Father "your work of faith, and labor above, and a steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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If you want to take some notes, I'm going to give you just a little bit of background information.
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It's always good when we go into a new book to sort of set the stage.
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But the church in Thessalonica was founded by the apostle Paul, planted so to speak.
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You can read about that in Acts chapter 17.
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And this would have been about 49 AD.
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Paul was on a second missionary journey with Silas, and he would have written this letter that we are reading together about a year later after being there during the events of Acts 17.
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Where is this city?
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Well, it's modern day Salonika, which is in northern Greece.
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And at the time, it was the largest city in Asia Minor.
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A couple of interesting things that I studied this week concerning the city of Thessalonica.
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It was a booming place, it was a popular place, it was a busy place.
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It was also a place full of crime.
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In fact, I discovered that many of the houses that were built there didn't have windows.
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Because there was so much crime.
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As a way of protection, they built their houses without windows.
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There was also a place of immorality, and we're going to be talking about that, and Paul addresses that in the book.
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There was a place of immorality, they actually had a moving business of prostitution, and they had gone up and up these walls in these houses.
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There are many obscene paintings.
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We talk about a place full of lawlessness and immorality.
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Not too far from home.
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So in the middle of this was this baby church that Paul wanted to encourage.
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And that's why he wrote First Thessalonians.
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That's where we're going to be starting on this journey.
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And the title of today's message is "Be Authentic." Be authentic.
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And I saw this stuff this week, and absolutely horrible.
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Do we have that picture, Mike, of the spray-on mud?
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How many people have a can of spray-on mud at your house?
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[laughter]
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Do you know what they use spray-on mud for?
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Actually, they sell this stuff in Europe.
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And it's quite popular in Europe.
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It's about $15 a bottle.
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If you don't think you spray one on the floor, it's the people that have SUVs that never get out of the city.
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They buy this stuff and they spray it around the wheels and the base of their car to make people think that they go on these wild, off-road adventures.
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And they actually buy spray on mud.
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Is that not the craziest thing you've ever heard?
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Like, in our house, we just have real mud, right?
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But they're buying for $15 a pot mud that you can spray in your car, and I thought, "Well, that's crazy." But then I thought to myself, "Maybe there's this whole market that's just not being explored." I mean, think about it.
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Who can make spray-on sweats?
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Like, for people that want other people to think that they go to the gym, they can just take their gym shorts and their gym shirt and spray -on sweat and make people think that they actually go to the gym.
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Like, who does this whole market?
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You're $15 a can.
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Who's with you on this, huh?
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Why?
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Let's raise some money for my kingdom.
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Harvest Pittsburgh represents spray on sweat.
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You know, we can make like fake bags to put under your eyes.
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That's kind of a press on thing for people that want other people to think that they've been up all night.
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Like, oh, I haven't really been studying.
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You know, I haven't been studying.
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I slept all night.
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I'm going to put these fake bags under my eyes and have people think that I was up all night studying.
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It would be great for students.
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And then I thought, well, while I'm in the market and making these showy things, you realize the Christian market is such a field for entrepreneurs.
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I have this idea.
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Why don't we make a line of clothes, like a line of jeans, where the knees are already worn out, so that people think that you're praying?
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What do you think about that?
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Wow, look at that guy.
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You can go, "Yeah, man, I'm on my knees before the Lord." I don't know why I stopped there.
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Let's make vials that are already beat up and marked.
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And sell them like that.
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So, you know, when somebody says, "Hey, did you read this verse?" "Yes, yes, I did." You must be carrying that thing around with you.
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You must be studying that.
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And obviously, it's about putting on the show, isn't it?
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Spray on mud.
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Spray on sweat.
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It's about putting on the show.
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It's making people think what you want them to think.
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But it's not authentic.
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It's not authentic.
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How many of you heard this story this week?
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Huge controversy this week.
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37-year-old Rachel Dolezal.
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Have you heard of her?
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Rachel is the president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP.
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How many heard of this story?
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She was a leader in the African-American community in Spokane, Washington.
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And it was revealed today-- it came out, her secret is blown, she is actually, what?
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She's actually white.
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How many people heard that story? She's actually white.
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And her parents are blue and whistleblowers.
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You see this picture of her.
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And then you see this other picture of her when she was a teenager.
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And she's white.
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And she's the leader of the NAACP.
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And it's in Washington.
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and it makes no difference to me. I was just laughing because many people, well first of all they know these pieces they don't care.
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Which kind of confused me, but many people were outraged at this. Like, how could she? How could she be pretending to be black when she's actually not?
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"How could she?" And there were people that were like that, but most people were kind of like...
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"Huh." That's how most people were like, "Isn't that...
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interesting?" And what's up with those underage people?
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Well...
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We always feel a little let down.
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When we discover...
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that someone...
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is not authentic.
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And honestly, the one place on earth that should be the most concerned about authenticity would be right here.
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The church should be the one place on earth where more than anything, what we are concerned about is authenticity.
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Where we are concerned about not putting on a show, not letting people think that we're bumping when we're actually something else.
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And as most of you know, I've only really ever had one goal for this church.
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And it was not to be the perfect church, or the hippest church, or the biggest church.
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My goal since day one was that we would just simply be an authentic church.
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We would be a church that believes in the power of God's word, that believes in the power of prayer, that believes in corporate worship and individual worship, A church that is bold about sharing the love of Jesus Christ with our neighbors and with our community and across the globe.
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A church that confesses sin.
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A church that repents of sin.
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A church that genuinely loves each other and loves the lost.
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As we go through the first Thessalonians, we're going to see that the Apostle Paul is going to encourage This young church, specifically, on what true Christians look like, and everything that follows that we're going to study over these next many weeks, and everything that follows 1 Thessalonians presupposes authenticity.
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Because you see, if we don't get this right, none of the other stuff is going to be right.
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If we're not focused, first of all, on being authentic, born-again believers in Christ, then all of the other sermons and talks and messages and exhortations, everything else that I shared with you from 1 Thessalonians, we're going to try to put on a show.
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To make people think this is who we are.
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That's why Paul shows us right off the bat, here's what an authentic Christian looks like.
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Did you see it in the text?
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What does it mean to be authentic?
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When you're on three things true of an authentic Christian.
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These all come from verse 3.
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Three things that are true of authentic Christians.
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The first one, play verse 3 again.
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Paul says he gives thanks to God always.
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For all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers.
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All of you constantly thinking about you, constantly praying for you.
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and I'm so thankful for you." And what are you thankful for?
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He says, "Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith, and lay your fault and steadfastness in hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." So there it is.
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These are the marks of an authentic Christian.
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Number one is authentic Christians are the faith that works.
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You see that in the text?
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"Remembering before our God and Father your work of faith." What do you mean by faith, first of all? We'll talk about work here in a second.
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But what do you mean by faith?
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This is the gospel.
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The Bible teaches that when God created the heavens and the earth, when God created the first people, He created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
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And He said, "Don't eat off the tree of knowledge, you do it to evil. Don't eat off that tree." And Satan deceived Eve, Adam was with her, and they willingly chose to disobey God.
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And when they did that, the Bible says, they brought sin and death into the world.
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That's why we live in a world that is decaying.
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That's why we live in a world where there's death and dying.
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Part of sin is a rebellious, self-centered attitude.
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That's what Adam and Eve brought into the world.
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The truth is every one of us was born with that.
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You are born with a sinful, self-centered, rebellious, snotty nature.
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And if you're not convinced of that, we have a lot of really young kids in this church.
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Next question, Mandy.
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You know, somebody-- children's check-in when the children are being released.
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Talk to a couple of the kids.
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Kids have a sin nature.
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You don't teach children to be selfish, do you?
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No parent teaches their child how to be selfish, right?
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Any dad here ever sat down with your son and said, son, let me tell you something.
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You're going to get far in life if you just look out for number one, and always be self-centered, and always do what makes you happy.
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No dad teaches a kid that.
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The kids know that mistakenly. Why?
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Because they're born with a sin nature.
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That's the bad news. The bad news is worse because I was sent to God's holy land.
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And what we deserve from our rebellion is condemnation.
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We deserve that.
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We deserve, not just physical death, we deserve to be cast out of God's presence for eternity because we have a role against the one who created us.
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That place is called hell.
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That's what we deserve, that's what I deserve.
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I deserve to go to hell.
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'Cause I'm involved in my creation.
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You deserve that too.
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Here's the good news.
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The good news is that God loves you so much that he provided a way.
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And that way was through Jesus Christ.
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When Jesus died on the cross, You can't be embarrassed of your sins and for being born again, for trusting in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, receiving Him, that life is restored.
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That's the Gospel.
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And the evidence that you have saving faith, the evidence that you have real faith, authentic faith, is not in what you say.
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The evidence that you have authentic faith is not in what you claim to believe.
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Biblically, the evidence that you have saved faith is in what you do.
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The work that you do for Christ in the Church is the evidence that you know him.
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You see it in the text? Paul thanked him for their work and faith.
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He didn't just say, "I thank God for your faith." It's an ideological question. Paul, how do you know they have faith?
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Paul, Paul makes it clear. Paul, that's how he does it.
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Paul says, no, I know that they have faith, because their faith works.
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And don't get the equation backwards here.
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It would be like, look, your neighbor's house catches on fire, OK?
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And the fire marshal shows up, and he's assessing the damage and trying to figure out what caused the fire.
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What if the fire marshal showed up and said, no, I see what the problem is here?
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You see all this smoke damage?
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I think the smoke damage caused the fire.
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You can be like, "I think your brain has smoke damage." Like, what are you talking about?
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Smoke damage doesn't cause a fire.
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Fire causes the smoke damage, right?
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And you see, that's the relationship between faith and works.
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And faith is like the fire.
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And when there is fire, there's going to be smoke, there's going to be smoke damage, and that's what Paul's pointing out here.
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If you have a poor fire of faith, there's no evidence that it shows up in your work.
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It shows up in your work.
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Look at verse 1 again.
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He says, "To the church of first Thessalonians," look at this phrase, "in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ." Notice he doesn't say "in God" and "in Jesus." He's equating, in a sense, Jesus with God.
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And he says, "Young Christians, this is who you are.
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You are in God.
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Jesus.
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You're living in participation with the life that's in God and in Christ." In other words, I put this on my notes, you should do, "Being born again changes everything." "Being born again changes everything." Being born again changes your standing with God.
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You're taken from an enemy to a friend.
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You're taken from the king of darkness to his glorious kingdom of his son.
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You're taken from hell to heaven.
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It changes your standing with God.
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Being born again changes your eternal destination.
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But being born again also changes your appetites, and it changes what you invest yourself in.
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And born again people are invested in Kingdom work.
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You see, the works that you do, that's the evidence, that's the result, that's the manifestation that you really are changed.
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You say you have faith, but the issue is, is your faith work?
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You know, somebody said to me about you, I think that that person's a Christian.
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Mediating skeptic, I'm not so sure that they are.
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What if I followed you around for a week, and just wrote down everything that you said, everything that you did?
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At the end of the week, what I have evidence is you believe what you say you believe.
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That's the evidence. That's the only evidence that I can see.
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That's the only evidence that all can see, which is why he said, "I thank God for the work, your work, of faith." That's evidence number one of authentic Christians. Your faith works.
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Number two, evidence number two, authentic Christians have a love that labors.
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Like, wait a minute, what?
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You were just talking about faith and work, it's not about the labor, like, what's the difference?
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Well, the difference is pretty deep.
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The word for labor literally means working to exhaustion.
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And you see, the word means the effort that's involved, not the thing that's done.
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Do you understand the difference?
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It's not about the thing that's done, about the effort involved.
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If I painted you a picture and you said, "Hashtag, that's great work." You see, that's the thing that was done.
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Then I said, "Well, I've worked very hard on that." I was talking about the effort that was involved.
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But it's in essence that he's talking about the love of the laborers.
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He's talking about simply what is done.
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It's about the motivation.
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You see, it's not just about getting work done.
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It's about the motivation behind why you do what you do.
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What motivates the worship team to set up and lead worship?
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What motivates the assimilation and hospitality team to do what they do?
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What motivates the children's workers to do what they do?
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What motivates me to do what I do?
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What motivates them?
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You see, it has to be a labor of love.
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Let me put it this way.
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Let's imagine you went to the doctor and they discovered that you had a very rare kidney disease.
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And you're going to need a kidney transplant.
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Both of your kidneys are done.
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They're shot.
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They're diseased.
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And you're going to need a kidney transplant.
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And it just so happens that because you're body type, there's medical people here that are going to correct you on this stuff.
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But don't miss the work that we do.
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And this is no excuse.
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I didn't study kidney failure this week, okay?
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I was kind of in for a special meeting, so if you're going to give me medical pieces, leave them privately.
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[cough]
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But anyways, finding a match is extremely rare.
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They find one.
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And they find one in Pittsburgh.
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We found somebody that is a match for you, who will give you a kidney and let you live.
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The next question is, are they willing to do it?
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Right?
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Let's pretend-- for the sake of illustration-- let's pretend that this complete stranger, by a non-bonded condition, finds out that he's a match.
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And this complete stranger says, I'm I'm willing to give one of my kidneys that that person might have.
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Let's say I'm on a straight line.
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This person gives you the kidney.
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The operation is a success.
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You're on your feet.
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You're doing great.
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But there's complications on this person's end, and they're still in the hospital.
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Their body, for some reason that the doctors can't explain, is not able to recover from the surgery.
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Their body's just not bouncing back.
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And they're in the hospital because they gave you a kidney so that you could be healed.
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And in the civil service region, you go to the hospital and you go to this person's room.
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And you go, "I am so appreciative of what you did for me." You put your life on the line so that I can live.
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Now, you're so off a little bit, and I'm out walking around with you, and you're still suffering.
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And you lean down and you say to this person, "Is there anything at all, is there anything at all that I can do for you?" And this guy, he's breathing his breath, looks up at you and says, "Would you please walk me to my car?" I said, "Where do you live?" "I live in the river." And of course, you walk out of the hospital and you're like, "Oh, great! I live in the river!
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He went to the water and started to throw it.
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Unbelievable!
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The nerve!
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I used that all over my head again.
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Third fight, lost a couple dollars.
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I can't believe he would ask me to go to his house and water and start it.
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Would that be you?
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Of course not.
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He's like, "I will do anything for you." "That's what you want? That's what I'll do." And you're watering the hangout of this garden.
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And you are importing water from France to water this garden with.
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Why?
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Because you are so appreciative of what this person did for you that you want to respond by doing whatever you can for this person, right?
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How much more of a response should we have?
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For the God who came and made his life for us.
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For the God who allowed himself to be nailed to a cross, so that I could be forgiven of my sin?
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That's what the Apostle Paul is talking about here.
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He talks about true labor of love.
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How much more does the love of our Savior go to make us deserve Him?
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He told us about that in 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 14.
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He says the love of Christ controls us.
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Like, why do you do what you do, Paul? I can't help it.
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The love of Christ controls me.
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Why don't you do it? I just can't help myself.
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Because I am controlled by the love of Jesus Christ.
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So lay your love.
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Ministry is hard work. Serving Christ is hard work.
27:23-27:27
But authentic Christians don't mind. They don't complain. They see the purpose.
27:28-27:29
Because they love their Lord.
27:30-27:34
When you say you love, is it because you love labor?
27:35-27:37
You say you have faith because you're faithful to God.
27:37-27:41
Finally, authentic Christians have a hope that it works.
27:42-27:44
Authentic Christians have a hope that it works.
27:47-28:00
Notice he says, "Your work of faith and labor of love will be the last things, and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." Steadfastness, that's just another word for endurance.
28:01-28:01
Enduring.
28:03-28:05
First of all, what does hope mean?
28:06-28:09
Hope is the anticipation of future glory.
28:11-28:17
It's one eye always on heaven, keeping me going today.
28:19-28:31
If you're an authentic Christian here, if you've ever had this concern in fact in your own thinking, I hope that I ignored it. I hope that I made it to the end of my faith, I think that's a fantastic issue.
28:32-28:39
Because if you're truly an authentic Christian, there's a 100% guarantee that you will end up there.
28:40-28:42
Because I promised that.
28:43-28:46
Before you can promise that, write this down, Jeremiah 32, 40.
28:47-28:47
Listen to this.
28:48-29:12
He says, "I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them, and I will put the fear of pain in their hearts, that they may not turn from me." You see, when somebody says they're a Christian, but then they like up and abandon the faith, and they walk away from the church and they don't have anything to do with God, God's people, God's truth.
29:13-29:14
What happened there?
29:16-29:17
What happened? Is there a faithful authentic?
29:19-29:20
How do you know that?
29:22-29:35
Because God himself promised under the new covenant in which you live, that when he gives his faith, when he makes this authentic and we're born again, he says they live.
29:36-29:40
I'm going to put it in their heart. They're not going to be able to.
29:40-29:43
You can't. You can't.
29:45-29:49
I mean, I can draw on that. What would it take to get you to turn from the Asians? What would it take?
29:50-29:59
Nothing. Nothing, right? Nothing. I couldn't offer you enough money. I couldn't even give you a small country, like, you know, How do you pack a sand or something?
29:59-30:08
I didn't forgive you enough, or bribe you enough, or offer you enough to make you say, "I'm going to turn away from the Lord." Where does that come from?
30:08-30:13
Because you're a disciplined guy, you are a disciplined guy, but that's not the thing that keeps your faith enduring.
30:14-30:18
The thing that keeps your faith enduring is because that's from God.
30:18-30:19
God put that in you.
30:20-30:24
So no matter what happens, an authentic Christian says, "I can't turn away.
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I can't. I just can't.
30:26-30:30
I just can't, because God rewired me when he saved me.
30:33-30:34
But let it be.
30:34-30:36
It takes a lot of you.
30:37-30:43
This enduring faith says, "I was made for heaven." Jesus is preparing a place for me there.
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I will spend eternally there.
30:45-30:47
I have an eternal reward waiting there.
30:48-30:50
And heaven is not a concept.
30:51-30:52
It is a reality.
30:53-30:54
Heaven is the realest picture.
30:57-30:59
And I am really heading in the wrong way.
31:01-31:03
And that's why Hope perseveres.
31:03-31:05
That's why Hope never fails.
31:06-31:11
Because Hope says, "I'm going to cross the finish line." I am going to cross the finish line.
31:11-31:20
And yeah, there's going to be a few bumps in the way, there's going to be a few obstacles come up, and there's going to be days of discouragement, but I am going to cross the finish line.
31:20-31:22
I will not quit. Why?
31:22-31:26
Because I have a hope that He lives.
31:29-31:31
But you say you have hope.
31:33-31:36
Does your hope make you a new one?
31:37-31:43
I think you saw the obvious theme here. Paul talks about "teach your kids together" doesn't he?
31:43-31:44
Faith, love and hope.
31:47-32:14
But here Paul says, "Thanks be to the Lord for the Thessalonians, for your love is evidenced by your labor, and your hope is evidenced by your reverence." Paul says, "That's how I know that you are in God, Christ." That's how I know that you're whole.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read 1 Thessalonians 1:1-3
Describe the relationship between faith and works. Why are works THE Biblical evidence of authentic faith?
How does love for Christ make you labor for Christ?
How does hope give you endurance to keep the faith in a hard world?
Breakout Questions:
Anyone struggling and/or going through the motions? Pray for authenticity!