The Second Coming of Christ: Loving Others while Waiting for His Return

1 Thessalonians chapter 3. We're in a five part series through the five chapters of 1 Thessalonians looking at the topic related to what I just was mentioning the second coming of Jesus Christ. And the reason why that is the topic of this book is because Paul ends each of these five chapters with some reference to the second coming of Christ. And so here's what we are looking at in terms of an outline of these five chapters. In chapter 1 Paul emphasizes how we have been delivered or shall be delivered from God's wrath. In chapter 2 he gives us reasons to rejoice about the second coming of Christ. Here in chapter 3 we're going to look at loving others while we wait for his return. Chapter 4 is about being ready for the rapture. That's next week's study. And chapter 5 is about spirit, soul, and body transformation. We're going to talk about what happens when you die, what happens when the church gets raptured. All of this how our spirit, soul, and body gets transformed. Jesus talked about his second coming in each of the four gospels. He mentions it. Paul writes about it in his epistles. Peter writes about it in his epistles. John writes about it in the book of Revelation. The early church fathers talked and wrote about the second coming of Jesus. And I even quoted a survey done by Pew Research of a cross-section of American adults who also a slight majority believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ. When we talk about the second coming, please know there are two phases to his second coming. And when we speak about the second coming, sometimes we speak so broadly that we don't know which phase we're talking about. So there are two phases. The first phase will be when Jesus comes for the church. And he only comes in the air. He comes in the clouds. The trumpet call of God. The dead in Christ rise. We who are alive and remain will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. That's chapter 4. That's next week's study. That's about the rapture. First phase, he comes only in the air to gather the church. Then there's the period of tribulation. And then Jesus will return to the earth with the saints. So the first phase is he comes in the air for the church. Second phase, after the tribulation, he comes to the earth with the church. And we will rule and reign with him for a thousand years known as the Millennial Kingdom. And then there will be a new heaven and a new earth and we shall be forever with the Lord. So those are the two phases. One is just in the air. One is to the earth. It's all part of the second coming. And what we're going to emphasize today is from chapter 3 about loving others while we wait for his return. This is what Paul emphasizes here at the end of chapter 3. If you look in your Bibles now at the end of chapter 3, verse 11, 12, and 13. This is what Paul writes, verse 11, "Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you."

And verse 12, notice this, "And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all just as we do to you so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." So there's that reference to the second coming. We're going to focus on verse 12 this morning, this afternoon, about, "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all." Let's pray first. Lord, we thank you for your word today. And I thank you for all those who are here and those who are watching, that together we would just humble ourselves before you and pray, God, that you would speak to our hearts through these verses today, that we might understand what does it mean to love others as we look forward to your second coming. What does it mean to love those who don't know you, to love one another, those who do know you, like you love us? Thank you for loving us. Thank you for demonstrating your love and a cross. We pray for that same love that would flow through us to others as we look forward to your second coming. We pray these things in Jesus' name, and everyone said, "Amen." According to Google, and you can trust Google every time, right? i don't know if this is true but i was googling have been written, several million poems, and tens of millions of novels about the subject of love. Now, I think we would agree that the world's definition of love is gonna be slightly different from ours, maybe largely different. There's gonna be some overlap. I mean, the way that we understand love, the way the world understands love, will be similar in some ways, but then there's a whole new way that Christians are gonna think about the topic of love that are very different from the way the world thinks of the topic of love. Most of the time that the world thinks of the topic of love, it's very romanticized, often even sexualized.

You think about different songs that have been written over the years, and even the question within a song, what is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more. If you don't understand why I'm bobbing my head, you're probably too young to know. (audience laughs) What's love got to do with it? Got to do with it, you know? All you need is love. Love is all you need. So the world has a different way of looking at the topic, and here in the closing verses of chapter three, Paul emphasizes the importance of loving others while we wait for the second coming of Christ. And it's actually, when you look here at these verses that I read with you, it's actually a prayer. Paul prays for the church. He starts out there in verse 11, "Now may our God and Father himself." He's appealing to the God of heaven. And he's asking the Lord for a few things as we get closer to the second coming of Christ, one of which is verse 12. Look again in your Bibles. May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all just as we do to you.

I want you to circle in your Bibles those two words increase and abound. He's praying to God for an increase and an abundance of his love toward others. So he's not only praying for us to grow in our love for others, that's the increase part. He's also praying that we would overflow with love. That's the abounding part. See, we can't just love a little, everybody. I mean, loving a little isn't even really loving. I mean, can you imagine if you were to go up to your husband or wife or your kids and say, "I love you a little"? What you're really saying is I don't like you a lot. To say, "I love a little" is not really loving at all. And so what Paul is praying is that we would increase and overflow with love and obviously the source of this love because he's appealing to the God of heaven is God himself. And think about the way God loves. Is he stingy with his love? Does he love just a little? I don't think so. Romans 5, 5 says, "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Jeremiah 31, 3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love," says the Lord. John 3, 16, "For God so loved the world." There's no shortage of God's love. There is an abundance overflowing of his love. He is the source of this love that Paul prays for.

They're in verse 12, "May the Lord make you increase in abound in love." God is the source of this kind of love. And Paul appeals to the God of heaven that we might increase in abound with his love. And then the rest of verse 12 tells us not just the source of this love, but the scope of this love. The rest of verse 12, he says, "May the Lord make you increase in abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you." Paul says, "You know, we're loving you." He says, "I want you to love one another and I want you to love all the way that we love you, the way that God has loved us." The two one another part, he's saying, "I want you to show love the increase in abound in love to one another." He's referring to the church. He's writing to the church about the church. He's saying, "I want us to love one another within the church. We should love one another." It starts here. John would write in 1 John 4.20, if someone says, "I love God and yet hates his brother in the Lord," or sister in the Lord. He's a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? So we need to love one another. We need to love one another within the church.

But that love should not be just restricted to despite culture, despite ethnicity, despite our backgrounds, we love one another. But it can't just stay within the four walls of the church because there's a loss in dying world that needs to know this love. And so we got to take it outside of here, but if it's not happening first and here, how's the world going to really receive it? Because Jesus said in John 13 verse 35, "By this will all men that know that you are my disciples if you love one another." See, we got to love one another here in order for the world to know we belong to Jesus and that they'll know that kind of love. That starts here, but it isn't restricted to here. There's a loss in dying world. That's what Paul means by all. He says, "I pray that your love would increase in a bound to one another." That's within the church. And it adds, and to all, that's everybody else outside the church, because they need to know the love of Jesus. And as we get closer to the return of Christ, pressure, hostility, and animosity is on the rise towards Christians around the world. That's why we need each other. That's why it's good and important for us to love one another because we're going to need each other. The worse this world gets, the more dependent we're going to be, not just on the Lord, obviously that's supreme, but we're going to be dependent on one another because we're going to need to encourage one another, help one another, comfort one another because the world is growing increasingly more hostile. That's just the reality of the world in which we live and it isn't getting any better. It will not get better until Jesus comes again. Every new year is the new normal. You can't go back to what we might call the good old days. Those are gone. That ship has sailed. The culture is the way it is now. The culture socially and morally is getting more and more evil. And thus because the culture is socially and morally becoming more and more evil, where is there animosity and vitriol going to be directed towards those of us who take issue with the culture and how evil it is becoming? So it's going to be directed more and more towards Christians. So we're going to need each other. We better love one another because we're going to need each other. Some of you might think, "Oh, you're pessimistic. You're a Debbie Downer." Well, sorry. I'm really just trying to be realistic. When I was in the second grade, you have the back-to-school night parent teacher conferences and stuff. My second grade teacher told my parents. They went in for a second grade meeting. My second

grade teacher told my parents, "Your son is way too practical." We don't know what that means. I still don't know what it means, but it's haunted me since the second grade. If being practical means I just am a realist, okay, fine. Some of you are optimists. I'm not really the most optimistic person. So God bless you if you're an optimist. You're not a realist, but you're an optimist. But the fact is when we look at the world, it's not getting better. It's not sunnier. It's more cloudy. And it's only going to get worse as we get closer to the second coming of Christ. I'm just emphasizing this because if you don't know how much you need the person sitting next to you or down the road, you better because we need each other. And we need to pray for each other and support each other and encourage each other, love each other. But then we need to take that love out into a hostile world that may not like the message we have. It's really nothing against us. It's Satan who doesn't like the messenger, doesn't like Jesus. And so you're going to find some hostility and animosity, but be prepared for it because it's here. And it's only going to get worse. And this is why Paul prays for our love to increase in a bound because Jesus is coming again. That's why he ends this chapter. And Paul knows that if we don't love people the way we should love people, if we don't really love them, then we won't care whether or not they are ready for the second coming of Jesus. But if we love them, we're going to want them to be ready. Remember in Hebrews 928, it says, "So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people, and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to all those who are waiting for Him." In other words, when Jesus comes again, it isn't to die in a cross. He did that once and for all, for as many as believed in Him, to them that received Him. Okay, that was done. That was accomplished on the cross. That's why Jesus said it is finished. When He comes again, it's not to die again for us. It is for the fulfillment of our salvation. And thus when He comes again, we want as many people to be ready as possible. And that's why Paul says here, "You better love people because Jesus is coming again That's why this prayer here really has an evangelistic element to it, hear it at the end of chapter three. Because if you love people, you wanna see them saved

so that they will be ready to meet Jesus. Whether that happens because they die and they meet Jesus, or that happens because they're still alive when Jesus returns again. Whether here, there, or in the air, we wanna be ready and we want people to be ready. And so then the question becomes how much do you love other people, how much do you love other people? Now, you know, the English language is not as rich as some other languages in that. When it comes to the subject of love, we have just that one word to describe an emotion that really is very different depending on what we're talking about, but because we only have one word for it, we will say things like, I love my family in the same sentence that we say, and I love football. But I hope you love your family more than you love football, but we only have the one word so we say it about both. Well, you say, I love Jesus and I love donuts, but I hope you love Jesus more than you love donuts. Now, what's funny to me is, as restrictive as the English language can be, we have this one word for love, but how many words do we have for coffee? (congregation laughing) Espresso, Americano, cappuccino, macchiato. I don't even think those are English words anyway, they aren't, but we have all these different words that describe coffee, but we have one word

to describe love, but not in the Greek language. In the Greek language, which was the original language of the New Testament, they have several words for love, depending on what you are modifying or talking about or emoting over, and there are four primary words that the Greeks have for love. One is storgae, storgae is the word for love when you're talking about familial love, about your family members. Storgae is the love of parents for children and children for their parents, that's storgae. They have another word for love, it's eros, eros is romantic sexual love, we get our English word erotic from the Greek word eros. They have a third word for love, it is philia. Philia means brotherly love, mutual friendship love. Like the city of Philadelphia was named philadelphia, meaning the city of brotherly love, even though if you've ever gone to a football game in Philadelphia, they're the city of brotherly shove, really. But that's philia. And then they have a word agape. And agape is the highest, purest, most supreme form of love. And that is the word agape that is the most often used word for love in the Bible, in the New Testament scriptures. More than 260 times the word agape or the verb form agapeo is used to describe love because it is the highest supreme kind of love. Now, I will admit that you look at ancient Greek literature,

even ancient Greek writers outside of the Bible would sometimes use the word agape, it's not exclusive to the Bible. But I would submit to you that because it is the word that describes the highest and most supreme kind of love that we find in the New Testament scriptures, the only way you are going to be able to express that kind of love is if you know the source of that love. And because God is the source, you cannot offer to someone what you do not have. You must know the God of agape love in order to express this kind of agape love to others. And that is the word that Paul uses here in 1 Thessalonians 3, 12. When he prays that we might increase and abound in love, it is agape. He's wanting us to express the highest, purest, most supreme kind of love to others as we await the second coming of Jesus Christ. Well, being the practical person I am, then the question becomes, well, what does that look like? Okay, we are to increase and abound in it, but then how do we demonstrate this? How does this kind of love get demonstrated towards others? And I'm going to offer four things to you, four different ways that we can demonstrate this kind of love to others. Now, I mean this, How do we love other people who don't know Christ? How do we love the all outside the four walls of the church?

But to be honest with you, these four things can be applied in the church, in your family, in relationships, but I'm gonna primarily be speaking of it in terms of how we are to love people who need to be ready for the second coming of Jesus, because time is of the essence. This is, it's urgent, and may God give us this sense of urgency so that we would love people. So here's one way. We need to say it. We need to say those three words. I love you. We need to verbalize this. Jesus, in John 1334, he said, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Now he's saying this to his disciples. "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." But then two chapters later in John 15, verse nine, Jesus says to them, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you." And he verbalizes it to them. He verbalizes, he tells his own disciples, "I have loved you, I have loved you." All through scripture the Bible tells us how much he loves us. I quoted it a moment ago, Jeremiah 31.3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." And so if we were to increase and abound in this kind of love, we're supposed to say it.

We're supposed to tell people. Now obviously, again, it should be a given that you tell your family members, the people closest to you, that you love them. You should be saying that to them. But learn to say this to other people too. And I know it can be sometimes uncomfortable, especially for guys. Guys like, I don't really wanna say I love you, you know? But when I'm saying this, by the way, when I say we need to verbalize this, I don't mean like, you know, just start to spontaneously say this to strangers. Like the Amazon guy drops off a package and you're like, "I love you, bro." (congregation laughing) But as you get to know some people, like actually feel the freedom, sister to sister to say, "I love you," brother to brother to say, "I love you." I mean, that's an important thing that people need to hear. The tour guide that I've been using for the last 25 years that we've been going to Israel. Ronnie Cohen, I first met him in 1998. And I heard his testimony in 1998 and he'd only been saved about two or three years. He's a Jew living in Israel as a tour guide, but he believes in Jesus as Messiah. He's a Jewish believer in Yeshua. You know how he came to faith in Jesus?

I asked him. He shared his testimony with our group before. I'm not telling his story without him. This is his public story. He says, "You know, this is how I came to faith "in believing in Jesus." He said, "Because as I would lead all these tour groups, "I would see all you Christians loving each other." And he said, "I would hear you say how you love each other." And he said, "I grew up in a home "where I never heard my parents ever tell me "that they loved me." He says, "I found Jesus because I saw your love, "and I heard your love." That's what people need to hear. There are a lot of people in this world who feel very unloved. And when you start to tell them, it will demonstrate the love of Jesus towards them. Say it, tell people, "I love you." Peter would write in 1 Peter 1, 2, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth "so that you have sincere love for your brothers, "love one another deeply from the heart, tell each other, "tell people, I love you." Number two, we can demonstrate love by the way we serve. By the way, we serve. In 1 John 3, 18, John writes, "Dear children, "let us not love with words like in speech only. "Don't just say, I love you, show it.

"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, "but with actions and in truth." Paul writes in Galatians 5, 13, "serve one another in love." Can't get plainer than that. Serve one another in love. Look for ways to serve people, to help people, to consider others' needs above your own. You know that's not always easy. You ever found yourself in the trap? I know I have at times. I'm not asking for a show of hands. I know that at times, we can think to ourselves, "What about me? "What about me?" If you've never thought that in a day in your life, please leave, 'cause then you don't need to learn anything, right? Like all of us at some point about, "What about me? "What about me?" - Sorry. - Sorry. (audience laughing) But the fact is that all of us have room to grow in this area because we are selfishly inclined. And yet the Bible tells us in Philippians 2, 3 and 4, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. So it isn't that your needs aren't important. He says they're not only to your own interests, but to others and consider others better than yourselves.

You know what we have to sometimes do is when we become others oriented, we're going to trust God that He's going to take care of our needs. So that we don't go around saying what about me, what about me? That we're going to trust God to put on the hearts of somebody else who might minister to us in some way, or God Himself will take care of us, but we have to be others focused and the way that we are others focused is when we serve them. Remember Jesus said in Matthew 20 verse 28, "About Himself the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." Do you know when you serve other people you are loving like Jesus? Because you're serving like Jesus. So we need to say it, we need to serve and then number three we need to sacrifice. That's another way we demonstrate love, because we live in a world that prioritizes self and self-interests, but Christ calls us to self-sacrifice. That means that loving through sacrifice means it's going to hurt sometimes when we give, when we pour out, when we sacrifice, sometimes it's going to hurt. And a love that sacrifices also means we forgive when we've been hurt. A love that sacrifices means we don't hold on to our rights because we want someone else to experience grace. I mean there's a variety of ways that we can sacrifice, but true love is sacrificial. You cannot define the love of Jesus without using the word sacrificial. And if we are to emulate the love of Jesus and increase in that kind of love and abound in that kind of love, then our love also must be sacrificial in some way. In 1 John 3, 16, it says, "This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." Now that doesn't mean that we need to be sacrificed on a cross. Jesus did that once and for all, it's not necessary for anyone else to be crucified. So when He says, "Laid down your life," what He's saying is, "Follow my example." What did Jesus think of when He went to the cross? He thought of us. That's the kind of other's oriented love that He wants of us.

To think of others, to be sacrificial in our love, to love as He loved us. And finally, number four, we demonstrate His love when we share, when we share. This is Hebrews 13, 16, it says this, "And do not forget to do good and to share with others for with such sacrifices God is pleased." Now in the context there of Hebrews 13, 16, I believe that He's talking about sharing material needs, helping people, showing them love by actually helping them in some material way of your resources to help provide for them in a way that shows you love them, you minister to them by helping to meet their material needs. But there's a greater way that we can share with people beyond helping to meet material needs and that is to meet spiritual needs. And the one and greatest gift you could possibly share with someone is a relationship with Jesus Christ. To help them understand how much Jesus loves them, died for them, and wants a relationship with them, that is the most important thing you could possibly share with someone. It isn't either or, it's both. We should love people to help them in material ways, but we should love them even more to help them find a relationship with Jesus Christ. To share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is showing true love, true love. When we love the lost enough to share the gospel with them. Some of you will know the name David Livingston. He was a missionary, a medical missionary who lived in the 1800s. He was from Great Britain and he was a medical missionary to Africa. David Livingston traveled more than 29,000 miles on foot sharing the gospel through the interior of Africa in the 1800s. In 1873, he died of money. would be the country of Zambia. His African friends found him dead by his bedside in a kneeling position as if he had been praying when he died. They loved him so much because he brought to them the good news of Jesus that the villagers of that African village carried his body after he died more than 1,000 miles to the coast

so that his body could be put on a ship and sailed back to England where he could be buried. But before they took his body that 1,000 mile journey, they cut out his heart by his request before he died and buried it under a tree in their village because David Livingston said, "This is where my heart will always be." Where is your heart? Who do you know within your circle, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers? Maybe a foreign country you've never even been to that God wants you to go as a missionary to. Hey? Amen? Wherever God might want to send you, that is your mission field. Wherever you live and work, that is your mission field. Whoever your neighbors are, that is your mission field. Where is your heart? Do you love them enough that you want them to be ready for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ? At least that's what Paul is praying for us, that we might increase and abound in God's agape love, that our heart might be for those who need him before he comes again. May God give that to us. Let's pray for it. Father in heaven, we pray for more of your love, that we would increase and abound in your agape love for one another and for all. For those inside the church and our own communities, but for the lost outside our church who need to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. So Father, I pray that you would help us to increase and abound in that love because the hour is urgent. You are coming again. Every day is closer to your Second Coming. And we know your heart. You want none to perish but all to come to repentance. So Lord, would you use us to help share the good news of Jesus?

And would you increase our love so that we would have such a heart for people who don't know you, that we would be bold and courageous with our faith to help people understand the good news of how you love them and died for them and want a relationship with them. May we be your ambassadors because we love others, because you first loved us, not because we must, not because we have to, but because we get to with the heart of love for people who need you. Use us in that way, Lord, increase our love, make it overflowing for others so that we might share the good news of Jesus wherever we go, whatever our mission field is, wherever you have planted us, give us eyes and a heart for the lost all around us. This is our prayer in Jesus' name. And everyone said amen and amen. God bless you everybody. God bless you. the Lord. Amen. Amen. Amen. You