Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 3:13-18

Helpful thoughts:

• If we take our eyes off of Jesus and start comparing ourselves to others, we will lose our righteous motivation for doing what is right.
  • “Burn out” is not just from doing too much…Burn out can be the result of doing too much for the wrong reasons.
  • When you do the right thing for the wrong reason you will often fail to get the reward you mistakenly hoped for, and then you grow weary.
• The command to “take note and have nothing to do with that person” would refer to the life of the church.  This is church discipline.  When a person refuses to repent, they should not be counted as a member in good standing, and therefore not encouraged to participate in the Lord's Supper without repentance.
  • The church would also often practice a “Love feast” which might look like a carry-in/pot-luck dinner in our day.  If a person was refusing to work, it would have been unwise to continue to feed them.
• The word for “Ashamed” (Verse 14) means to inwardly reflect.  This passage is not telling the church to shame people in sin.  It is commanding the church to lovingly respond to people in their sin in such a way that the one in sin has no choice but to think of their need of repentance.
  • It is loving to confront a brother or sister in sin.
  • It is unloving to act like nothing is wrong.

Questions to consider:

1. If sin brings death, why would we ignore it?  Why wouldn't we try to alert the sinner and urge them to repent?  Who are we really trying to protect when we refuse to speak up?
2. Some people say, “One reason I need to be a church member is so that I can be disciplined if I am caught up in sin.”  What do you think about that statement?  What does God say (in the Bible) about that statement (Matthew 18:15-20)?  Why is church membership so important?
3. Why are you doing what you are doing?  What are the rewards you are seeking?  Do you feel weary in doing the good that you are doing?

If you are feeling “Burned out” try to discern humbly (Perhaps with the help of a trusted Christian friend) if the feeling is coming from physical exhaustion, suffering and hurt over the sin of others, or from a wrong goal or prize you are seeking.  There's a great chance it is a combination of all three!  Learning where the fatigue is coming from will help you to process and make the best decisions as to what needs to be done.

Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12

Helpful thoughts:

• If a Christian is unwilling to work and yet expects the church (Or other Christians) to take care of him, the church is neither obligated to help, nor are they actually helping in giving financial aid.
  • What is helpful/spiritual/righteous is to rebuke that person and help them or encourage them to find a job.
  • It is not helpful and therefore not spiritual/not righteous to continue to aid them in their idleness (Sin).
• Paul, Silas and Timothy took zero donations from the church in Thessalonica in order to emphasize and set an example for the need to work hard to provide for your own self and household.
• Proverbs 26:16 – The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.
  • The lazy avoid busyness and instead become busybodies, thinking themselves wiser than everyone else and telling everyone how things ought to be done…

Questions to consider:

1. Is everyone who is requesting assistance unwilling to work?  Why would it be wise to ask questions before we exclude someone from our help?
2. Who are the people who are being lazy in this passage?  Are they professing believers or unbelievers?  How might we handle a situation differently when considering the needs/requests of unbelievers?
3. Why is it wrong to think that anyone sits around doing “nothing”?  If people aren't busy doing something right, what are they doing?  How can that encourage you to work hard today?  To spend your “down time” wisely today?  To think on the right things today (Philippians 4:8-9)?  To choose your words wisely today (James 1:19)?

Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Helpful thoughts:

• It is good to pray that people will hear the Word of God, believe and repent.
• It is good to pray that people would be delivered from persecution.
• Paul was writing God's authoritative Scripture.  If a pastor today thinks verse 4 gives him authority to tell everyone in the church what to do as a command from God, they are wrong.  That would be an abuse of the office of the pastor.  Pastors are not apostles.

Questions to consider:

1. How does verse 5 reveal the motivation for the “doing and will do” in verse 4?  Are these Christians being motivated by guilt into obedience or is it something else?
2. Did Paul choose not to continue preaching the word in order to avoid persecution?  What is the difference between avoiding persecution and praying for deliverance from persecution?
3. How could these prayers for the proclamation of the Word and for deliverance from/through persecution apply to you?  Who else could you be praying for today?

Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

Helpful thoughts:

• Christians, you are saved because God the Holy Spirit set you apart (Sanctification) and because you believed.
  • What did we believe?  The Gospel.
• This mention of “firstfruits” in verse 13 is similar to Ephesians 1:4, “Before the foundation of the earth.”
• Our ability and confidence to stand firm and our ability to be comforted does not come from within…it comes from without.  And specifically, from God.

Questions to consider:

1. From where and in what is our identity rooted?  Who are you?  What is the most important thing about you?  Who made you to be who you are?
2. Why are the answers to those previous questions so much more empowering than any self-help mantra?
3. How do good works and good words further establish our hearts?  What are we made more confident of when we see our actions changing (Progressive sanctification) and we continually hear the truth?

Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Helpful thoughts:

• Our enemy works through false teaching/false writings.  Just because something was written and published for the Christian book store doesn't mean that it is biblical.  We must be careful to know the Word of God and to discern everything else against its truth.
• The “Man of lawlessness” and “Son of destruction” is the Anti-Christ.
• The reason why the Anti-Christ has not appeared in the world still today is because God has not allowed it.  God is not observing and then reacting to anything.  He is in control.

Questions to consider:

1. Why will the perishing perish?  What choice did they make?  What did they refuse?
2. What will happen to those who have already willfully rejected the true Christ when the Anti-Christ comes?  Who will they readily worship?
3. As powerful as Satan and the Anti-Christ will be, how successful will they be against Jesus Christ?  What will Jesus have to do to defeat them?

Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 1:5-12

Helpful thoughts:

• Being a persecutor might look like winning, but it's losing.  Being persecuted might look and feel like losing, but it's winning.
• “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” – Romans 12:14-21
• Perseverance is a work of God's powerful grace.

Questions to consider:

1. What things could we regularly do to help us remember who defines and who judges winning and losing?
2. When we respond to one who disagrees and has rejected God with kindness, love and peaceful confidence, what gift have we given to them?  What do they need to hear?  How do all of our interactions with unbelievers become opportunities to plant, water and potentially harvest Gospel seeds?
3. Who is doing the work in verse 11?  Who then rightly gets the praise in verse 12?

Today's passage: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4

Helpful thoughts:

• This second letter to the church in Thessalonica shares many of the same content and themes of the first.  It is the same church, but they are growing.
• Paul emphasizes the church's continued growth, love and endurance during persecution…and thanks God for it.  These things are all gifts of God's grace.  We “ought” to praise Him for it (Verse 3).
• These Christians were not just surviving in the faith during persecution, they were thriving.  The were growing “abundantly”.

Questions to consider:

1. Where does our identity, peace, growth, love come from?  How does this come from and grow out of the Gospel?
2. How would a greater appreciation and praise of the Lord be an indicator of growth?  How would an attitude of patting myself on the back for my “growth” be an indicator that perhaps I haven't grown at all?
3. This might be a tough question…but, what are the benefits of persecution?