WWUTT 492 Error or Impurity or Attempt to Deceive?

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In case you haven't realized it, the world is more than willing to point out to you when you're acting like a hypocrite.

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So there needs to be a consistency not only in our message, but that we live out the message that we preach when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Continuing our study of 1 Thessalonians 2, I'll be reading once again verses 1 -8 as Paul speaks so affectionately with these brothers in Thessalonica.

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For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain.

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But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our

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God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive.

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But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please

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God, who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed.

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God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.

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But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.

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So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

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The apostle Paul here means to not only communicate his affection for these brothers in Thessalonica, but he also means to remind them of the love that God has for them.

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Note again in verse one, he says, you know, brothers that are coming to you was not in vain.

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So we did not do this for ourselves. It was because we cared about you. We cared about you before we even came to you.

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It was the whole reason why they came to Thessalonica, because they loved the people who were there before they even set foot in the city.

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That was why they were bringing the gospel. Remember, they were persecuted at Philippi verse two, but though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, yet they are encouraged all the more to go to yet another town and share the gospel, though they know that they will be facing persecution there as well.

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Why is it that they would continue to do that? It's certainly not to benefit themselves. It is because they love so affectionately the people that they go there to share the gospel with.

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It doesn't matter what sorts of difficult trials that we're going to face in this world because we hold so fast to Christ and his word.

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We nonetheless share that word with others because we love others, because we see that people are created in the image of God and having sinned.

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They have desecrated that image and what they will get for their sin, blaspheming

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God by taking the breath that he gave them and cursing God and exalting their own glory instead.

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So what they deserve for that is death, as it says in Romans 3 10, that they have become worthless because of their sin.

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And so knowing that they have been made in God's image, but they've desecrated that image and what they deserve is death.

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We love them enough to share with them the gospel so that they would turn from their sin and believe in the message of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins so that all who believe in him would stand before God justified.

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We would have peace with God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, no longer under his wrath, but saved by his grace.

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So that is why Paul came to Thessalonica sharing the gospel. It's because he loved the people there.

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But again, he means to not just communicate to them his love for the Thessalonians, but also

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God's love for the Thessalonians. So look at the next part, though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, you know that we had boldness in our

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God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. So we didn't shrink back from declaring the gospel, which would have been easy to do after we faced persecution at Philippi, but rather we came to Thessalonica preaching the gospel all the more because we had boldness in God.

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He gave us the boldness to come to you and share this message. So it was meant by God that you would hear it and repent.

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Remember going back to 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 4, for we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the

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Holy Spirit and with full conviction. So once again, we did not come to you in vain.

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We came to you for your benefit. And we didn't come to you on our own accord, but we had the boldness of God that was in our hearts to preach the gospel to you that caused you to turn from your sin and worship

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Christ and so be saved. And so my brothers and sisters in the Lord, we must pray to God for that same boldness that we would be able to share it with those who are perishing, that they would turn from their sin and believe in Christ and so be saved.

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We do this because we love. We love those who have been made in God's image, knowing that every person is worthy of dignity and respect.

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So we need to preach this message with gentleness and respect. It is God who grants repentance and turns them from the snare that they have been trapped in by the devil, delivering them out of that darkness and into God's kingdom of light.

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So let's go on here to verse 3, where Paul says, for our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive.

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But just as you have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please

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God who tests our hearts. So Paul puts before them that the message of the gospel, it does not have any error.

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It is not impure and nor is there any attempt to deceive. Now this is contrasting against the philosophers whose message was actually very inconsistent.

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When you're talking about a worldview that is not grounded in any sense of objective truth, then there's no consistency to the philosophy that they have to share.

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Paul wrote to the Colossians, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

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Because you see, it's only in Christ that we have any sense of objective truth.

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The thoughts and the ideas and the teachings of the philosophers were based on subjectivity.

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It's like just what I believe is true, not based on what actually is.

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It's what I want the truth to mean for myself. So you have somebody saying, well, there is no such thing as absolute truth.

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Truth is relative. Well, is that an absolute statement? If that is the case, then your argument has just committed suicide.

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It is inconsistent. And this was the philosophy of the philosophers.

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I'll give you an example of one of them in particular, Epicurus, who would have been one of the prevailing philosophers at this period of time.

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It was actually the Epicureans that Paul contended with at the Areopagus when he preached in Athens.

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We read about that in Acts chapter 17. Epicurus believed that death is the end of both body and soul, and therefore there was no reason to fear death.

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So when you died, you just ceased to be. You did not exist before you were born.

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Then when you were conceived, you did come into existence. So just as you had no consciousness before you were born, so you will have no consciousness after you die.

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And this was a concern even among the Thessalonians. And we're going to read about that coming up because they feared that their brothers and sisters in the

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Lord who had died before the coming of Christ would not be with them on the day of the

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Lord, that their body had just died and the soul had just perished and didn't exist anymore. So did our brothers and sisters miss out on the day of Christ?

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And Paul is going to address that when we get to chapter four. So this was the Epicurean belief that the

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Thessalonians had. But here's the problem with that belief. So Epicurus taught that death is the end of the body and the soul.

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How does he know that? Based on what? Where does he get that from? Is it some sort of objective truth outside of himself that he knows that the soul does not continue to live on and exist even after the body dies?

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He has absolutely nothing to base that off of except for his own feelings, his own thoughts, his own ideas, his own beliefs.

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Nothing objective, but entirely subjective truth. Furthermore, Epicurus taught that the gods neither reward nor punish humans.

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How does he know that? How does he even know that there are gods? What does he base that off of?

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What sort of objective truth is he using there? Epicurus also taught that the universe was infinite and eternal.

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How could you possibly know that? Especially when at that particular time they had much less scientific instruments to be able to measure the size and the scope of the universe.

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He's just looking up into the sky and saying, it's all infinite, it's all eternal, there is no beginning, there is no end.

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Well, how could you possibly know that? Especially when all that you know about yourself and all of creation is that there is a beginning and there is an end.

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Nothing just continues to exist without a beginning and an end.

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So he was denying what he could observe in nature to make this subjective statement that the universe was infinite and eternal.

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So this is just a few of the examples of the things that the philosophers taught that were totally contradictory and could not be based in any sense of reality.

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And we've got philosophers around us all the time, especially in pop culture, trying to push upon us their self -refuting ideas.

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I happened to catch on Twitter that Kevin was sharing the gospel with Katy Perry. Hey, I hope that she clicks on the link that you shared,

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Kevin, and would hear the gospel proclaimed even through the internet. So I went to Katy Perry's Twitter page.

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I don't ever really do this, but I just happened to do this because I noticed that Kevin was sharing the gospel with her.

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And under her bio on her Twitter page, she says, I know nothing that that's a self -refuting philosophy itself.

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How can you know that you know nothing? You would have to know something to know that you know nothing.

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Therefore, you can't possibly know nothing. So even that just a little message like that, we get messages and philosophy thrown at us in 140 characters whenever you're on Twitter or in a meme, when you're on Facebook, constantly bombarded with philosophical messages.

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And yet, unless it's based in objective truth, unless it's based in Christ, then it isn't really truth.

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It is self -refuting. Consider these words that the apostle Paul shared with Titus.

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And this is in Titus chapter two, starting in verse seven. He says, show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works.

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And in your teaching, show integrity, dignity and sound speech that cannot be condemned so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

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What Paul is saying to Titus is that the message that he shares needs to be consistent.

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It cannot contradict itself. If you are going to say that a person in Christ must live this way, then you likewise must live this way.

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You must know how to defend the faith from those who mean to contradict it.

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That was one of the instructions that he gave in Titus 1 .9, that a person who is a minister of the gospel of Christ must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it.

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So there cannot be any contradiction in what it is that we believe. We must know how, according to what

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Peter says in 1 Peter 3 .15, to give an answer for the hope that lies within us, but to do this with gentleness and respect.

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So there needs to be a consistency in our message. When we tell people to repent of sin and follow

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Christ, then we likewise must have turned from sin and follow in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

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This is the consistency in our message. If you are hypocritical in any way, there are people that will sniff it out and they will be more than happy to point out to you the inconsistency in your message.

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So know how to defend it. And the best way to know how to share the gospel and defend the gospel from those who wish to malign it is to simply put it into practice.

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You got to be out there and you got to be doing it. You have to find ways and avenues and places where you can go to either people you know or complete strangers and share the gospel with them.

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They will contend with what it is that you have to say. But the more you do it, the more you will know how to respond to those arguments that are brought up against you using the word of God, having scripture memorized, having certain references that you know that you can respond with to those who wish to contest against you for this gospel that you share.

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Of course, a person is going to be offended when you say that you are sinning. And if you don't repent, the judgment of God will come upon you.

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Yes, they're going to be angry when you say that, because, as it says in the book of Proverbs, every man is right in his own eyes.

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And so it is a massive offense to their own subjective truth to be told otherwise.

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But there must be a soundness in our speech, a consistency in the things that we say.

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If we say, turn from sin and follow Jesus Christ, we must have done that as well, showing with our lives the righteousness that we walk in, no longer in the sin of our former selves before we came to Christ, but walking in his righteousness as we call people to do the same.

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So the apostle Paul saying that also with the Thessalonians, there was no error or impurity or any attempt to deceive with our message.

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You saw this. You saw the consistency in the things that we taught. But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not to please man, but to please

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God who tests our hearts. Ultimately, this is what we do this for. We are doing this in service to our

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King who told us to go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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And lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. Paul pointing that out here, even as he shares this with the

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Thessalonians, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.

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You know, one of the places where you will practice this consistency in your message in the gospel is in your own home.

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How at peace are you with Christ who has overcome the world that you would display in your home a consistency in your walk of faith?

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You tell your children to turn from sin and to follow Jesus Christ and to trust him for everything, but do they see in you as mom or dad that you believe this, or do you very quickly lose your temper?

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Do you very easily fall into despair? Do you find things to be hopeless or life to be boring or your love of family to be insufficient?

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Your children will recognize that in you and they will see that there is an inconsistency in your message.

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You say that you believe in Christ for all things, that he is your sufficiency and grace, and yet you do not display a joy in your life.

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That will communicate to your children an inconsistency in your message. When you say the joy of the

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Lord is my strength, but you don't show that in your life, that claim echoes hollow within your own family.

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Another place that you practice a consistency in your faith is in your church and your brothers and sisters in Christ will recognize whether or not there is a consistency in this faith that you proclaim.

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When you say that Christ has forgiven me of my sins and now I rejoice in God always for the goodness that he has given me, do they see in your life a truly, a genuinely joyful heart?

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Or do you walk around like you're sour and bitter all the time? Do you complain about your circumstances? Do you complain about the opportunities that you didn't get or how you deserve something that hasn't been given to you yet?

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Well, that displays in your very language that you are unsatisfied with everything that God has given you.

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And ultimately, when you complain about your circumstances, who you are cursing, when you don't like when things don't go your way, you're cursing

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God. You're saying, God, I deserve better than this. I believe you are sovereign, so therefore you should have given this to me by now because I deserve it rather than rejoicing in God for having given you life and having saved your life from the pit and restored you to his kingdom through his son,

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Jesus Christ, who died for you. You have been bought with a price. So honor

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God with your body, all of it. The things that you put into your mind, the things that you look at with your eyes, the things you say with your tongue, let it be honoring to the

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Lord. So we practice this in our church, among our fellowship of believers, and they will tell you if you are being consistent or inconsistent so that we might grow in this process of sanctification, of being made holy and right before God, anticipating, waiting, anxiously awaiting the day that Christ is going to return in glory.

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And then we will be delivered from this plight, this mortal coil, these bodies that are wasting away even as we inhabit them.

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And our bodies will be transformed to be like his glorious body. So that is the day that we anticipate.

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And knowing that nothing on earth, nothing in creation, seen or unseen, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord, that just causes us to rejoice all the more. You know, this just echoes the importance of being in a church, because how can you possibly grow in the encouragement and admonishment of your brothers and sisters in Christ unless you fellowship with them on a regular basis?

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You cannot just simply say, well, I'm a part of the body of Christ because I'm a Christian. No, you must attend church.

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You must grow with the saints in holiness. They help you do that.

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I remember it was Tim Challies who wrote an article entitled, Sanctification is a Community Project.

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It is something that we do together. You recognize the chinks in your armor, the flaws in your growth and development because your brothers and sisters are gracious enough to point them out to you in a kind and loving way, because they are pointing them out to you so that you might become better, growing all the more into your

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Savior, Christ, through whom we are united. We are joined together in love.

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So let us be joined together all the more in Christ Jesus and be an encouragement to one another, just as Paul is encouraging the

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Thessalonians here. And he's going to get to a point where he will point out the flaws in their current state of their faith and what they need to do to perfect those things in Christ that they may be all the more sanctified in his spirit.

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Let us pray as we come to a conclusion here. Our Lord God, thank you for loving us and saving us from our sins and give us a spirit and a heart that is fully satisfied in you in all things.

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Let there be a consistency in our message so that no one would have anything evil to say about us.

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And when we come with a message of joy in the Lord Christ, who has rescued us from sin and delivered us into your wonderful kingdom, they will recognize that there is truly something different in us, in our lives, that is unlike anything that they see in the rest of the world, because the world cannot separate us from that kingdom that we have received in Christ Jesus.

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So let us rejoice in that so much so that we are given boldness to carry the gospel of Christ even to those who do not yet believe that they may turn from their sin and worship

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God on the day of visitation. We thank you for your patience with us and continuing to grow us in the knowledge of you and may we continue to be a benefit to one another in the body of Christ, your church.

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We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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