Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Taking Sin Seriously | New Testament | 2 Thessalonians 1

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Do you trust God's design? Can you follow warnings? Where are you tempted to sin in your life? In today's episode, Patrick uses 2 Thessalonians 1 to discuss the importance of resisting sin and persevering in righteousness. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Thessalonians 1

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. When I was a teenager, I went on a camping trip with some friends to an elk farm because apparently that's something you do in Missouri. Anyway, we went to this elk farm. It was owned by a friend of mine's uncle. And when we got there, he laid down some ground rules about what we were and weren't allowed to do. So you can imagine a lot of that had to do with not bothering the elk. You don't want an angry elk running after you. but he warned that if an angry elk runs after you, you will be tempted to run for the fences and jump over the fences. There was just one big problem. They were all electric fences. I mean,

that's how they keep the elk in. And so he told us, don't touch the fence. And when he saw a response, which was obviously one of curiosity, he added a second warning, which was this. There's three kinds of people out there. There's the kind of person who's told not to touch a fence and he doesn't touch the fence. There's a second kind of person, though, who has to see someone else touch the fence and get electrocuted to determine that, yes, I will not touch the fence. But there is a third kind of person. This is the kind of person who has to touch the electric fence and see what it does to them before they will know to never touch an electric fence again. Well, you can imagine as a bunch of teenagers what we did next. He left and we went and found an electric

fence. Now, I'll finish that story in just a moment. But first, I want to turn to today's passage, Second Thessalonians chapter one. If you've been with us, you know that we just finished up Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. And he ended up having to write a second letter very shortly afterward. And of course, it begs the question, why? I mean, didn't Paul say everything that he needed to say in the original letter? Surely if people heard that letter read to them, they would amend their ways. They would listen to what Paul says. They would change. But the truth is often more complex, even inside of the Christian life. You see, sometimes we're warned not to touch the fence. Paul writes a letter and says, hey, here's some things to do and some things not to do,

and people listen. But there's other kinds of people out there and maybe you're one of them. I know I can be one of them who need to see someone else touch the fence or maybe touch the fence themselves before they learn that it's going to electrocute them. The truth is that when it comes to sin, we often see it as something that we can just play with, something that's not going to harm us. We see the electric fence and think, oh, there's not a big deal about touching it, about jumping over it. But the reality is that it can electrocute us. Now, I don't care who you are. We all have sins in our life that we kind of. of love to play with. Maybe it's sexual sins in your life. Maybe it's pornography and lust. Or maybe you're

dating someone right now and you know you're crossing boundaries in that relationship that you shouldn't be crossing. And again, you're faced with that question. Will I trust God's design for sex and my sexuality? Or will I have to hear how someone didn't trust it and how that harmed their life? Or will I have to be the one who touches the fence myself and lives in a different way and has to live through the repercussions of those sins? It might be in your speech and in your words. It might be in your speech. You might hear the warnings against gossip and against slander and say, okay, I'm not going to gossip. I'm not going to slander. Or maybe it'll have to see someone else gossip and someone else slander and see the consequences that come from that. When they lose friendships, when they lose credibility and respect as a result of their gossip.

Of course, there's always the third kind of person who has to do the gossip themselves and see the relational harm that the gossip causes and then finally realizes, man, maybe I shouldn't be gossiping. Again, I don't care who you are. There is sin that we're all tempted by. They're electric fences that we know we shouldn't touch, but maybe we want to watch someone else touch it. Or maybe we need to touch it ourselves to figure out what happens. Now, wherever you're at with that, I want to come to you with some encouragement because Paul was writing to early churches full of people like you and me.

And if our relationship with God was based on single chances, Paul would have never written a second letter. He would have said, hey, I said what I said. And if you don't want to listen, it's up to you. But I'm going to move on. That's your life. I'm living my life. Instead, Paul, because he loves the people in that church, says, no, I need to give them a second chance. I need to reach out to them. I need to remind them about the dangers of sin,

about the dangers of abandoning Jesus so that they won't commit those sins, so that they won't turn from Jesus. So let's pick up Second Thessalonians chapter one. Paul writes this. We'll pick up in verse three. We ought to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, rightly, because your faith is growing more and more. And the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God's churches, we boast about your perseverance and faith in all persecutions and trials you are enduring. So let's pause, because we should be encouraged. There were people in this church who heard Paul's first warnings, and they followed his warnings. They didn't need to touch the fence.

Instead, they said, when I'm persecuted for my faith, I'm not going to turn my back on Jesus. I'm not going to turn back to idols. I will remain faithful. I will trust the promise that Jesus is going to return and make all things new and all things right. But then he goes on. And again, we're going to see just a hint of a warning in this next passage. And I think he's talking to the people who need to see someone else touch the fence. Let's keep going.

Verse 5. All this is evidence that God's judgment is right. And as a result, you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are suffering. God is just. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to all who are troubled and to us as well. So he's saying, hey, just the case you're tempted to touch the fence, remember this. Jesus is going to set things right. You don't have to worry. He continues in verse 8. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might. On that day, he comes to be glorified and his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you because you have believed our testimony to you. So again, he's talking to the person who's tempted to touch the fence. And he's saying, hey, I've seen people touch the fence. And do you know what the result is?

Well, they sit under God's judgment. You see, we don't like to talk about hell. We don't like to talk about the judgment of God. We don't like to talk about eternal destruction because maybe it feels icky or maybe it feels judgmental or maybe it feels like we're being exclusive. But Paul is very serious here. He says, people who touch this fence, they're harmed. And if you stay on that fence, you will face eternal judgment. That's no laughing matter. It's no play. It's no play thing. You see, again, that sin in your life, it's not a toy. It's not a small thing. And if we continue in it, if we continue to walk in our sin, it's a sign that we never believed in Jesus to begin with. And if we don't believe in Jesus, if we don't put our hope on him, then we do face

eternal destruction. We do face his judgment. Do you have that kind of seriousness about your sin? Again, back to my story with my friends. Well, after that guy left and gave us all the rules, again, we did what any teenager would do. And we went and found an electric fence. And as it turned out, there were people in our group who just needed to be told once, don't touch the fence. They weren't going to touch it again. But there were some other people in our group who wanted to see it for themselves. And so they reached out and they grabbed the fence. And I'll let you YouTube what happens to you when you touch an electric fence. Don't worry. You don't die. You take a pretty bad shock and they were all okay in the end. But when I saw someone else

touched the electric fence, I was convinced. I didn't want to touch it myself. I want you to think about that sin in your life, that you're tempted to touch, that you're tempted to play with. And then I want you to think about someone else who's played with that sin, who's lived in that sin, who hasn't repented of that sin. Remember what it's done in their wife. Think about the destruction it's caused in their relationships. And let that be enough for you to say, I don't want to do it myself. Because again, the worst thing we can do is climb on the fence ourselves, feel the pain of sin, and even worse yet, not let go. God is calling us to persevere in righteousness. This doesn't mean that we earn our salvation. This doesn't mean that we go to

heaven because we did right things. Quite the opposite. Jesus died for our sins, but we do have to accept that gift in our lives. And part of accepting that gift is resisting sin through repentance, time and time again. So if you're hearing this and you're feeling condemned or you're feeling judge or you're saying, oh my gosh, I just touched the fence yesterday. Well, me too. Again, this is why Paul writing a second letter is so encouraging because it reminds us that God's grace is greater than human sin, that our hope for the future is not rooted in the perfection of our own works. It's rooted in the perfection of God's grace and God's mercy. So I want you to walk away from Second Thessalonians, this entire letter that's repeating a lot of the same themes from the first letter. I want you to

walk away from it and say, okay, God, maybe I need to be reminded once or twice. Maybe I need to see someone else touch the fence. Maybe I've touched the fence myself, but wherever I'm at, I do not want to give myself over to my sin. I want to repent of it. I want to fight against it. I want to resist it because I know where living in sin leads. Living in sin leads to eternal destruction. Living in sin leads to denying you. Living in sin leads to turning my back on your goodness and your kindness. God is kind. God is good. But because he's good, he must judge sin. And so we're all faced with that choice. Will we receive the gift of grace from Jesus? and let him face our judgment in our place. Or will we face that judgment ourselves because we love

the sin because we want to live on the electric fence? Don't live on the electric fence. It's not pleasant. It's not a toy. It's something that can not only ruin your life in the here and now, but can ruin your eternal destiny. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.