Abundant Love

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12New International Version (NIV)

1 Paul, Silas and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

2 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

³ We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. ⁴ Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. 12 We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I am driving, I like listening to sports talk radio.  I don’t listen to too many national radio programs but I will listen to the Dan Patrick show if I get a chance.  The other day they were having a conversation about why they did not attend church that much anymore.  I can’t recall how they stumbled across this conversation when talking about sports but they did and I just happened to be listening when they did.  The guy whom the show is named after, Dan Patrick, said he went to a middle school with a catholic affiliation so he went to church every school day for 2-3 years and thought that he was still far enough ahead for that.  It was a “I put my time in” kind of attitude.  He went on to say that there are some fundamental church beliefs that he struggles with and the one he mentioned in particular was original sin.  He struggled with the fact that one man, Adam, sinned and has caused all of mankind to sin.  And within Church tradition, sin is the cause of death.  He failed to mention that also within Church tradition, Christ is the one who conquered this sin, therefore conquering death.  Even if we haven’t personally wrestled with the idea of original sin, most likely we have come to know and understand the premise.

Personally, I am not sure how I feel about the idea of original sin.  It is just something that I accepted because I know that Jesus conquered it.  But what if I didn’t know that Jesus conquered it?  What if I didn’t have the faith that I do?  What if I am someone who wasn’t raised within the realm of church tradition to know the power of Christ’s death and resurrection?  What if no one ever shared the good news of the Gospels with me?  I have a difficult time believing that God would charge Ruger and any young child with the notion of original sin because of Adam’s fall from grace.  And the church did as well, therefore the came up with the idea of the “Age of Accountability.”  This is a finite number that states all of a certain age ought to understand their sin and its consequences.  Again, a premise that can be difficult to fully understand as an adult let alone the age of 12.  

So, you may be wondering what the original sin has to do with our scripture for this morning... Rightfully so.  Whether you believe that our sin is derived from the actions of Adam, that we are more than capable of producing sin ourselves, or believe the origin of sin to derive from something else; Christ conquered it.  We explain away some of the most difficult questions to answer through the idea of original sin.  But if we also believe that Christ conquered death, therefore crushing sin, how can this still be true?  It is not that I have an answer to this question but I say all of this not to crush church tradition but to explain the love of God.  How can God let these terrible things happen if He loves us so much?  Our answer is sin.  The unfairness of life is explained away through the sin of Adam.  Those bad things that happen to good people is explained through the fall from grace of humankind.  Again, Christ changed all of that.  This doesn’t mean we have a free pass from the consequences of sin but it does mean that we have hope for something greater.  I think life is a chaotic consequence of choices we make.  Sometimes those consequences are obvious and sometimes they are not.  Sometimes the consequence of our choices are exactly as they ought to be but sometimes they are not.  

Therefore, I urge to take steps each day to become closer to God.  In doing this, you will not necessarily be able to explain the many “why’s” of life but you will be able to better sort through the messiness of life to find hope.  In our text for this morning, Paul says, “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters....”  In other words, Paul is telling us that we should be grateful for one another.  Paul continued later in his letter to say, “We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Grace and gratitude derive from the same Greek word but do have different meanings. A Goggle search of the word “gratitude” offers us some very interesting perspectives. When we look at the history of usage for the word, we see that it was used 6 times more in 1800 than it was in 1990. Yet, with all the amenities we are afforded in today’s world, instant communication, running indoor plumbing, electricity, cars, farm equipment and so one, we ought to be 100 times more thankful than those who lived in 1800. And yet we aren't.  Our thought process today tells us that we don't really need grace because we haven't done anything wrong. My thoughts on original sin are probably a byproduct of this lack of gratitude as I underestimate the amount of grace I need.  Is it possible that our lack of gratitude is the reason for our lack of seeing the need for grace? It is likely. One of the things that upsets me most about my children is their sometimes display of a lack of  gratitude. Just last night, we thought we would get them root beer to share while they ate supper. One of my kids through a fit because they had to share, one through a fit because they couldn't drink it right then and there.  IT WAS SO FRUSTRATING!  But it puts into perspective my lack of gratitude for all that I am afforded.  Does God get frustrated with me like I did with them?  Probably not because He understands but I now better understand that life and faith are a constant search for the will of God.  Our message for this morning is not about sin.  It is about gratitude for my kids may not fully understand the meaning of gratitude but we should.  The only way for us to better understand how much we are given is to look at those whom little is given.  And I believe faith offers us a chance to better see this.

That being said, I firmly believe that getting back to gratefulness will expose our need for grace, not just with God but with each other as well.  We have lost sight of being grateful for our brothers and sisters.  We have lost sight of the need for different opinions, for different cultures, for the need and reliance we have on one another.  We are gathered today in numbers not typical of a Sunday service here, in gratefulness of a child.  We get to decide how we will help him grow, how we will do what we can to help him be better than ourselves.  We our freely given an opportunity to do that and the choice is ours as to how we will do it.  The choice of showing our gratitude to one another is ours.  Our showing of unwavering gratitude towards one another will only expose our need for grace.  Our grace according to God and the Lord Jesus Christ so that He may be glorified in us, and us in Him.  Which begs the question, do I need to do a better job of showing my gratefulness so that my kids and many others can see just how grateful I am?