Advancing the Gospel, Part 2

2 Thessalonians 3: 1-4

Today we’re delving into a topic that resonates with so many of us – the need for love and patience. In our lives filled with work tension, home difficulties, marital pressure, health struggles, or family concerns, these two qualities can often feel in short supply. But the good news is, we’ll discover today just how deeply loved we are by God, and how His boundless patience can sustain us.

In the face of life’s challenges, Pastor Colin will take us to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 5, a verse rich in hope and assurance. He’ll unpack the profound prayer that we may find direction into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance. This isn’t just a wish but a promise – that the Holy Spirit can work within us, providing the love and patience we crave.

Through today’s message, we’ll unravel the distinction between merely knowing of God’s love and truly experiencing its depth. We’ll hear about examples like John Wesley, whose heart was ‘strangely warmed’, transitioning from mere knowledge to an intimate feeling of God’s love.

I’m facing tension at work, I’m dealing with difficulties at home, there’s pressure on the marriage, perhaps prolonged and endless it seems visits to the doctor, or ongoing physical pain, a son or daughter who is wayward, and you find yourself saying, you know what, I need love, and I need patience, that’s what I need. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and maybe you’ve tuned in today and you can identify with that thought, I need love, I need patience, it’s good that you’re here because that’s what we’re talking about today Colin. You know I think we all come to places where we find that we need love and we need patience. You know Colin, I think that’s something we all need. You know it fits into all kinds of different circumstances, I mean here’s the couple married, perhaps this is your situation right now, and you are not deeply loved, and you say oh I so long to be deeply loved, where are you going to go and find that? And we’re going to look at how you can know that you are deeply loved because of the depth of love that there is in the heart of God for you, and you need patience, there is patience in the heart of God, perseverance towards the heart of God. If we can grasp what is in the heart of God for us and get that into our hearts, that’s going to be what we need in the journey of life, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and he may use this broadcast to do just that, so please if you can open your Bible and join us in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 5 today as we begin the message, the love of God and the patience of Christ. Here’s Colin. The entire message today is taken from just one verse in the Bible, one verse in this great book, We’re Coming to Love, and what a text it is. I pray that God will burn it into your heart so that you will come to love it and use it not only today but for many years to come in your life. Second Thessalonians 3, 5, may the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and into Christ’s perseverance. Now this is obviously a prayer. Last week we saw how Paul asked these believers to pray for him. Remember, pray for us that the gospel may run. Now he is praying for them, and he prays this, may the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and into Christ’s perseverance. The word perseverance can also be translated patience. If you have the old King James Bible, that is what you will see there, the love of God and the patience of Christ, and that’s the translation that I’m going to use as I speak on this verse today. I want to begin by gathering some things that are just very obvious on the surface of this great text. Number one, I need love and patience especially when I’m tired of the battle. I need love and patience, these are the two things I really need, that’s why Paul prays for them, and I need them especially when I’m tired of the battle. Remember that this is a letter that was written to a group of young Christians, new Christians, who were feeling the draining effect of the difficulties of life. Some of you may be saying this morning, well that’s exactly where I am, I’m facing tension at work, I’m dealing with difficulties at home, there’s pressure on the marriage, perhaps prolonged and endless it seems visits to the doctor, or ongoing physical pain, a son or daughter who is wayward, and you find yourself saying, you know what, I need love and I need patience, that’s what I need. Number two, God can give me the love and the patience that I need, that’s why Paul’s praying for it. I know there’s something very wonderful about this verse, that Paul is not coming to these Christians and asking them to do something for God, he is coming to God and he is asking God to do something for these Christians. He’s saying something like this, look, I see what you are up against, I see how difficult all of what you are facing is for you, and I am asking God to do something special in your lives, and here’s what it is, may the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and into Christ’s perseverance. And the whole point is that our wonderful Father in heaven is able to give us, his children, the love and the patience that we need. And number three, I can ask God to give me what I do not have. Now again, this is just a very evident observation from the simple verse, if these Christians were already brimming over with love, if they were already overflowing with patience, there would be no need for this prayer, would there? The whole point of the prayer is that Paul is asking God to give them what they do not have in themselves. And so this is a wonderful thing, I can come to God, you can come to God, and we can say, Lord, give me the love and the patience that I need. Because you have love and the patience in abundance in yourself, I don’t, I just don’t. So give me what I do not have, give me what is in you. You can make this prayer your own, it’s a wonderful prayer, it’s to be underlined in your Bible and to be used. You can come to God and say, Lord, fill my dried-out heart with your love, Lord, fill this frantic life with your peace and with your patience. So folks, this is very simple, isn’t it? These are just on-the-surface observations from this wonderful single verse. May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s patience. I need love and patience, especially when I am tired of the battle. God can give me the love and patience that I need, and I can ask God to give me what I do not have. Now there you are, there’s a five-minute simple meditation on one verse of the Bible. And I want to say to you today, you can do that for yourself. You could do that every day as you read the Bible. You really actually don’t need a pastor to do that for you. I want to encourage you to do this. This is a little sidebar to encourage you in your own daily devotional life. You can do this. Read a few verses from the Bible and pick one. And then when you pick one, write out what it says, just one verse, and then write it out in your own words, your own words, and then write out how it helps you, just what it says, what it means for you. Look, children can do this. Children can do this. It’s a great habit to start. If you’ve been doing it just a few times a week, you’ll soon find that you want to do it more, and you may find you’re doing it every day of the week. One verse, a little passage, pick one verse, just one that pops out to you. Write out what it says in your own words, what it means, how it helps you. And I promise you that as you do this, you’ll get better at it, and you will find that God’s word is bearing fruit in your life. Get a hardback notebook to do this. It’s worth the few bucks for a hardback notebook. I wish I’d done that years ago. I was looking at some notes on the Bible that I made when I was 14 years old just a few days ago, and I wish I’d had a hardback notebook, because they’re all dog-eared pages, all dog-eared pages, but they’re still there. And you will have joy in looking back on what God has taught you from his word over the years. Let me say one more thing on this little aside before we move on. Some of you are in the habit of reading devotionals, you know, a book with a page for every year, and it’s got a verse at the top, and then some good person has written a page of thoughts on that verse. Now that’s good, and that’s fine. I’m not knocking it, but if that is what you have done, and that is all you have done for your devotional life for many years, it may be that it is time for you to move beyond feeding your soul on other men’s thoughts. Try feeding your soul on the word of God directly. Ask God to help you. Get a friend to encourage you. If you want to share what’s in your hardback notebook, do that. I promise you that a year from now, if you do this, you will be amazed at how much you have grown. And I say again, because I’m so thrilled every week that children are in the service with us. Children can do this. You can begin to do this when you’re very young. One verse, what it says, and how it helps me. And I’ve tried in the first part of the message today just to model that for you in the simplest way. The first verse that pops today, may the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s patience. I obviously need love and patience. And God can give me the love and patience that I need. And I can ask God to give me what I do not have. You could do that. And you could feed your soul from the word of God every day. And you will be amazed at how much you will grow. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, The Love of God and the Patience of Christ. It’s part of a larger series based on two Thessalonians called Staying the Course When You’re Tired of the Battle. And don’t forget, if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always go online. Come to our website, openthebible.org.uk. There you can catch up or go back and listen again to any of the previously broadcast messages. And you can also find our messages now as podcasts. Go to your favorite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to receive regular updates. Back to the message now. Here’s Colin. Colin and I have enjoyed visiting Mackinac City on several occasions. Who’s all been to Mackinac City, been across the Mackinac Bridge? It is fantastic. It is a very distinguished place. What distinguishes the place is that, of course, that is the place where two of the great lakes converge. And as you drive across the Mackinac Bridge, you look to the one side and you have the vastness of Lake Michigan, and you look to the other side and you have the beginnings of Lake Huron. And you know, as I think about this text of Scripture, it is like that. It brings together not two great lakes, but I think this has to be like two great oceans or two great worlds or two great galaxies. Look at them. The love of God, how great is that? And the patience of Christ, how vast is that? And Paul brings these two great oceans in all their vastness together and they converge in this one single verse, and he prays that God will direct the hearts of folks like us. The prayer for us, into the vast depths, God’s love and Christ’s patience. So the question for us today then is, how much do you know of this in your heart? How would you describe your personal experience, that’s what he’s talking about, of God’s love and of Christ’s patience? That’s a question. Now most of you know that our church enjoys a very close relationship these days with a ministry called Live at Peace Ministries. How many have heard of Live at Peace Ministries? Good, a good number of you. Some of you have benefited from their ministry already. It is a Christian counseling ministry serving people from all over the Chicago area. Now Live at Peace Ministries is headed up by Judy Dabler, a wonderful lady who amongst other things teaches at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, our own seminary in Deerfield. And I want you to picture for a few moments her class. Here’s this lady, and she has in front of her 120 seminary students, 120 seminary students, wonderful. And here are people who are preparing themselves for Christian ministry, and they’re there in her class. And she starts the class by asking the 120 a simple question. Do you believe that God loves you? Do you believe that God loves you? Now I want you to take a moment. I want you to fix in your mind how many people out of the 120 you think in our seminary said, yes. How many do you think? Fix it in your mind. You ready for the answer? Two. Two. I still can’t take it in. You say, what did the rest say? They said something like this. I know I’m supposed to say yes. I know that the Bible says that, but I don’t always feel it. I’m not sure if I can really say that I believe this. Now I’ve got to say in defense of the students, I feel sure in my own mind, because I’m still so staggered by this statistic, I feel sure in my mind that a whole bunch of them thought it was a trick question. Let’s give them that, all right? What would you have said? Do you believe that God loves you? You say, two out of 120, how can this possibly be? Surely every Christian knows the love of God. Did we not learn it in Sunday school? Jesus loves me. Put up your hands if you know this. Jesus loves me. This I know. Everybody, you see. For the Bible tells me so. Did we not all learn that if you were in Sunday school? Jonathan Edwards uses a simple analogy to get to the heart of the issue here. He says, there is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet and having a sense of its sweetness. You see what he’s saying? It’s a very important point. You can know that honey is sweet because someone tells you that honey is sweet. But you do not really know the sweetness of honey until you have tasted it. You can know that God loves you because the Bible tells you so. But you don’t really know it until you have tasted his love. Taste and see that the Lord is good. And the reality, folks, is, and it was brought home to me in a most striking way through what I’ve just shared with you, that many Christians live at a great distance from a felt experience of the love of God. So much Christianity in our time is shallow and it is satisfied. It affirms a creed, but it lacks spiritual life. And I tell you that across this country, there are millions of people who have a faith. They have been brought up to believe for sure that Jesus died and rose. They have gone to church, but they have no living experience of the love of God. So I say to you today, we desperately need this prayer. May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and into Christ’s perseverance. And understand, this is a prayer for Christians. He’s writing to the church. It is a prayer that God will do something among us, people who believe, but do not always feel that God loves us. I want to use this prayer today to try and open your mind and open your heart to something more than you may have experienced, even if you’ve been a Christian for 10, 20, 30 years. Here are Christians who are going through great difficulties, and Paul is saying, my prayer for you is that God will direct your hearts into the love of God. That’s my prayer for the church. I remember they were being persecuted, so the very fact of this prayer indicates that it would be possible, as a believer, to endure persecution and to stand up under it and not to feel the love of Christ. That’s possible. Just as it’s possible to go through seminary and prepare for ministry and not to feel the love of Christ, just as it’s possible to sit in the pews, or better still, the beautiful chairs in an evangelical church like this, you could do it for 20 years and not feel the love of Christ. It’s possible. That’s why we need this prayer. Friends, I don’t want to be there. You don’t want to be there. I don’t want you to be there. People who are not Christians endure great pain, and they endure great sorrow, and they do it by gritting their teeth, or in England we do it with a stiff upper lip. Paul is saying, I want something better than that for you. I want for you who are in Christ, for your soul to be filled with the love of God when you are facing the great trials of your life. Now, I’ve got two more things here this morning. One is I want to give you some real life examples of the love of God flooding a person’s soul, and I’m doing this so that you will be encouraged to pray for more than you may already have experienced. I want to give you some examples, and then briefly I want to give you some pointers as to how you can move forward from where you are now in terms of experiencing more of the love of God and the patience of Christ in your own soul. So one or two examples, and I’ve deliberately chosen very striking examples because I’m trying to pry our minds open from the sort of been there, done that mentality in which so many Christians think they’ve got nothing more to experience because they’re already converted. Let me give you the example of John Wesley. Wesley was a pastor. He had preached in England, had preached in Georgia here in the States, then returned to England, very discouraged. Something happened to him as a minister on the 24th of May, 1738, while he was listening of all things to a man reading the introduction to Luther’s lectures on Romans in Aldersgate Street in London. Some of you will know this. I quote from Wesley, about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ. He’s talking about the man reading this stuff from Luther from a lectern. And as he’s reading this, these famous words, Wesley says, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. Now what’s so striking about this, friends, is that this man had been a preacher for years. And there he is in Aldersgate Street, and suddenly this overwhelming assurance of the love of God fills his soul. He had a new sense of its sweetness. And his life and his ministry were transformed from that time on. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, The Love of God and the Patience of Christ. And it’s part of the larger series based on two Thessalonians called Staying the Course When You’re Tired of the Battle. And if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always catch up or go back and listen again online. Go to openthebible.org.uk. And you can also catch any of our messages as podcasts. That might be a more convenient way for you to listen to Pastor Colin’s messages. Go to your favorite podcast site and search for Open the Bible UK. Subscribe for regular updates. Also on our website and available now as a podcast, you can find Open the Bible Daily. It’s a series of short two to three minute reflections based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish. You can find that online at openthebible.org.uk and on your favorite podcasting site. Again search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to Open the Bible Daily if you want to receive regular updates. Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners. And if that’s something you feel you’d like to do, this month we’ve got a special offer for you. In return for setting up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible, in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to send you two copies of a book called More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. And Colin, who is this book for? Well, it’s for anyone who wants to bear witness to Jesus and anyone who has questions about Jesus which ought to just about cover everyone who’s listening to the program today. I’m sure. This is a marvelous book. More Than a Carpenter has a story behind it. And the story is that the author, Josh McDowell, actually set out to disprove Christianity. That was his aim. And what he found when he set out on that journey was that the evidence for scripture and for the claims of Jesus Christ was so compelling that he himself was converted and became a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this is a great book for helping anyone who wants to be clearer and more confident in their testimony to Jesus. And it’s a marvelous book to be able to give to anyone who’s a sceptic or is asking honest questions about the Christian faith. And that’s why we want to send you two copies of this book, More Than a Carpenter. One for you and one to give away. That’s our gift to you if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details on our website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I very much hope you’ll join us again soon. It’s quite possible to sit in church every week for 20 years and more and still not feel the love of Christ. Don’t just grit your teeth and carry on, experience more of the love of God. Find out how next time on Open the Bible.

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Colin Smith

Trustee / Founder and Teaching Pastor

Colin Smith is the Senior Pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He has authored a number of books, including Heaven, How I Got Here and Heaven, So Near – So Far. Colin is the Founder and Teaching Pastor for Open the Bible. Follow him on X formerly Twitter.

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