From 1 Thess. 4: The Picture and the Frame

“Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (v. 18)

This chapter (1 Thessalonians 4) teems with practical instruction.

Continue in sanctification. Cherish sexual morality. Love one another, as brothers and sisters in Christ. Do your work, walk humbly, and choose contentment.

We’re told to do these things, and do them even more. It’s a practical picture.

But that practical picture is framed entirely by spiritual truth.

We have hope, because we have Jesus. Death is no more. He is coming. He will call us home. While there are all these things we ought to do now and do even more, our everlasting reality is that we will always be with Him, by His grace.

We are not merely encouraged toward obedience in the Word. We are encouraged toward confidence.

“Therefore, encourage one another with these words.”

— Tyler

From 1 Thess. 3: Check on Them

“For this reason, when I could no longer stand it, I also sent him to find out about your faith, fearing that the tempter had tempted you and that our labor might be for nothing.” (v. 5)

Think, for a moment, about that person you’ve lost track of.

Maybe you were church together for a season. Maybe you were a part of their earliest days in the faith. Maybe, for a time, you were friends in Christian community.

But now you’ve lost track. You haven’t seen them. However much you might miss them—and, you hope, they might miss you—you aren’t currently connected.

I encourage you in Paul’s example:

Check on them. Reach out. Don’t presume that all is well, that they remain firm in the faith, that they are yet overflowing with hope. Check on them!

My prayer is that we will be surprised by (and comforted by) the faithfulness we will find when we find them. But if we find them wandering, we ought to keep going to them and keep going for them, in prayer.

Paul didn’t know what he would hear when he finally reconnected with his friends at Thessalonica. And we don’t know what we’ll hear, either. Yet we can check on whoever they are wherever they are—and we can hope to find them faithful.

— Tyler

From 1 Thess. 2: A Sunday Prayer

“This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the word of God, which also works effectively in you who believe.” (v. 13)

Here’s a good prayer, as you look ahead to Sunday:

Pray that Jesus’ church would be filled with people who will hear His Word…and receive it as just that. The Word of God.

Pray that, in our gatherings, there will be those who are ready to hear this Gospel.

Pray that their open hearts will become changed hearts, when they hear and believe.

Pray for a receptive church.

To God be the glory.

— Tyler

From 1 Thess. 1: Reputation

“We recall, in the presence of our God and Father, your work produced by faith, your labor motivated by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” (v. 3)

What kind of reputation do you hope to have? And how do you hope your church will be remembered?

Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives us a good track to run on. When he writes to his friends in Thessalonica—a church planted in the midst of both paganism and antagonism—his gratitude for then overflows. Why? Because everything they do, from their work to their worship, is rightly motivated. They work out their faith, they labor with love, and they worship in the light of their everlasting hope in Christ.

The church Paul celebrates isn’t merely a religious institution. They are genuinely transformed by their faith in Christ—and it shows!

So ask yourself (and your church) the question:

Is this our reputation, too?

If it isn’t—if your works are self-righteous and your labors are self-serving and your faith is self-comforting—then revisit the Gospel. Be remotivated by the pure gift of grace in Christ. And rebuild your religion, so that it is truly Christian.

— Tyler

From Acts 18: What’s the Worst that could Happen?

“The Lord said to Paul in a night vision, ‘Don’t be afraid, but keep on speaking and don’t be silent. For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city.’” (vv. 9-10)

Are you familiar with the phrase, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Typically, the fear of “the worst that could happen” isn’t enough to stop us. We tend to realize that there is no big “worst” to be afraid of.

All of that changes, however, when it comes to evangelism.

We can dream up all kinds of little “worsts” on the way to sharing the Gospel: They’ll be mad at me, I won’t be able to answer their questions, it’ll cause trouble in my relationships, I’ll be an inferior example of my faith and my church, and so on. We fear conflict and controversy. So we conclude, “There are some worsts that could happen!”

And we stop before we even start.

May we be encouraged by the Spirit’s words for Paul, as he ministered in Corinth. The man was assured that God was with him, that he would not fall while being faithful, and that he should go on preaching the Word. The Spirit spoke that into Paul, reminding him that there is no “worst” that God will permit, when God’s people prove obedient.

We are surrounded by allies, and we are everlastingly upheld by our Lord. So start—and keep on—speaking this truth.

What’s the worst that could happen?

— Tyler

From Acts 17: Upside Down

“These men…have turned the world upside down….” (vv. 6-7)

What is the message that turns the world upside down?

There is another King.

He isn’t a Caesar. He isn’t a ruthless politician. He isn’t a party figurehead full of empty promises.

He is Jesus: Savior, Worthy One, Sovereign.

When the Spirit drew you to Him, He turned your world upside down, didn’t He? You were freed from the cycle of mistrust and disappointment that every earthly king keeps you trapped in. Now your heart is free to worship rightly— in Spirit and in truth—because you have come to know the true King.

If that truth turned your world upside down, imagine what it will do for your neighbors, whose political signs and ever-evolving flags keep digging deeper holes in their hearts.

Will those who proclaim the King meet with cultural opposition? Certainly. But, even out of that culture, some will come to know life and light and hope, when they hear and believe. Their world will be flipped, too.

So let’s go, and let’s tell—and let’s trust the Spirit to draw them to the King, too.

— Tyler

From Galatians 6: Tired of It

“Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.” (v. 9)

Have you ever felt burned out in church?

It’s too many activities. Too many responsibilities. Too many offerings. There are so many things that are so strongly insisted—serve your church, love your neighbors, give and go with the Gospel—that it feels like too many things.

Let me be honest: Sometimes our weariness is the result of poor planning and frantic leadership. I’ll own that.

But that’s not the threat the Bible warns against.

The real threat, apparently, is that we will lose both vision and patience in the doing.

The Bible encourages us not to grow tired of doing good in these moments, and it does so while promising that the “why” will be known only later. Those who patiently trust that are the ones who press on.

That’s not an excuse for overdoing it. We are not called to unboundaried religious workaholism. But we are, in fact, called—to do Gospel good, to trust with patience, and to not give up.

Press on!

— Tyler

From Galatians 5: The Rubric

”If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (v. 25)

Do you remember writing term papers in school?

The grades weren’t just given out willy-nilly, were they? No, the teacher used a rubric, a breakdown of what would be scored and how. You knew what the assignment was, and you knew what everyone would be looking for when you did it.

Paul (inspired) tells the church in Galatia, “Keep in step with the Spirit.” Live by faith. Move in freedom. Serve with love. That’s the assignment.

But how will we know you are doing that? What’s the rubric?

The Bible calls it the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. (You just sang the song in your head, didn’t you?)

These aren’t your to-do list. They’re the evidence that you’re doing the one big to-do. They’re the way we know you comprehended the assignment of faith and are walking with the Spirit. A vital Christian life will exhibit all of these things.

So examine your life. Look for what we’re all looking for. And check the marks.

Does your life reflect the Spirit’s rubric?

— Tyler

From Galatians 4: Wasted Efforts

“I am fearful for you, that perhaps my labor for you has been wasted.” (v. 11)

I don’t know who it is or who it was, but…

…someone somewhere told you the Good News of the Gospel.

Maybe they wrote that book or sang that song. Maybe they led that class or preached that message. Maybe they answered your questions and told their story and invested in you personally.

Someone somewhere introduced you to the love, freedom, and forgiveness that is only found in Christ, by grace through faith.

Which brings us to a question, in the light of Paul and the Galatians:

Are you living—are you believing and worshiping and testifying—in such a way that their ministry has not been in vain?

Or have you wasted their effort by continuing to live for self, for self-righteousness, and for half-gospels?

Before you wander into cliques and camps, and before you add religion to freedom, remember the truth you were told—and the one who loved you enough to tell it.

Don’t waste their efforts.

— Tyler

From Galatians 3: Old News

”My point is this: The law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously established by God and thus cancel the promise.” (v. 17)

One of the best—and most overlooked—aspects of the Good News is this:

It’s really old.

As in, older than the two-thousand years since Christ, which you already accounted for.

The Good News of the Gospel—of God’s gracious election of a people to be His, by grace through faith—is actually old news.

This is why Paul, inspired by the Spirit, takes such care in remembering Abraham. Abraham wasn’t justified by the Law of Moses. That came centuries later—and it was given to boundary God’s people from the sins every person is prone to. Abraham was justified by his faith. He believed what God said.

And what God said was the Promise: He would grow a family, for His glory on the earth, and that family would bring light and hope to all the nations. Really, that family would bring Jesus into the world, and Jesus would redeem the elect once and finally.

God told that to Abraham—and to us!—hundreds of years before the New Testament happened. When we hear the Gospel and believe, we’re believing a Good News that is OLD news.

And the oldness of it reveals even better news: God’s gracious sovereignty has been unfolded for us from way back when, even before we knew it was grace.

— Tyler

From Galatians 2: A New Alive

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (v. 20)

Get the picture:

It’s an entirely different life now.

When Paul concludes, “I no longer live and yet I live,” he’s telling us that the life lived by grace through faith in Christ is something “other.” He might have lived for the Law; now he’s dead to it. He might have lived for religious rules; now he’s dead to them. He might have lived for elitism and favoritism; now he is dead to those things, too.

In Christ—and only in Christ—there is justification, freedom, and life. Such faith tears down every former way. Because He now lives in the believer, we are alive to community and invitation and proclamation, while remaining dead to legalism and its empty promise of justification.

That’s an entirely different life—compared to the old, and compared to basically every other religion.

Thanks be to God.

— Tyler

From Galatians 1: The Change

”They simply kept hearing, ‘He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith he once tried to destroy.’” (v. 23)

I know the antagonists are annoying, but always remember:

The change may yet come.

By His grace, the Lord calls even those who have remained determinedly against Him, when His light shines on their darkness. No one will see that coming. Yet, like Paul, they may yet know the Lord’s mercy through this Gospel.

So don’t lose heart, even when they act against you. Don’t stop praying for the Lord’s light to pierce them. And don’t count your enemies as if they are beyond salvation.

The change may yet come, in Christ and for His glory.

— Tyler

From Acts 16: Prison Songs

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” (v. 25)

I do have to wonder:

If I were persecuted…

If I were unjustly accused…

If I were imprisoned because of faithfulness to the Lord Jesus and His calling…

…would you find me singing hymns?

Or is my praise dependent upon my comfort?

Whatever you’re going through—or whatever is ahead—may you be so captivated by Jesus’ goodness that you praise Him still. May the hope of heaven be enough to distinguish your songs here. May you give thanks in all things.

If “wonder” ever turns to reality, keep singing.

— Tyler

From Acts 15: Restrained

“Therefore, in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles who turn to God, but instead we should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from blood.” (vv. 19-20)

Yes, you are freed.

Yes, you are saved by grace.

Yes, you are a Christian who is not under the law.

But you are still restrained.

Following Christ, in freedom, has never been a moral free-for-all. Even from the start, Gentiles—non-Jewish, other-religious converts—were instructed for right worship and right morals. Some have painted the grace we have in Christ as “anything goes.” But it is not so and has never been so.

So, yes, we are free.

But we are still (rightly) restrained.

— Tyler

From James 5: Near

“You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.” (v. 8)

Don’t forget, don’t neglect, and don’t lose sight:

The Lord is coming soon.

If you read James 5 through that lens—the very-near return of the Lord Jesus Christ—you will know what to do, and you will do it urgently.

You will change your relationship with worldly goods, and cherish heaven’s treasures instead.

You will give up conflict for the sake of growing in community.

You will pray—with power and with passion and with purpose—for others as well as yourself.

And you will show your neighbors—and the nations—the way, so that they might turn around from sin and turn to the Savior.

You will do it all urgently, hopefully.

Because His coming is near, thanks be to God.

— Tyler

From James 4: Loss & Gain

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (v. 8)

We get confused about repentance.

Too often, we think of repentance merely in terms of what we are giving up. Turning around from sin means turning around from pleasures. Changing our minds about sin means trying not to enjoy the things we used to. Repentance looks like loss, in our reckoning.

But that is a fundamental confusion.

The believer’s heart doesn’t beat for the things he gives up. It beats for what he gains—and what he gains is intimacy with God. When we turn around from sin and draw near to Him, He draws nearer to us, by grace. You don’t earn His love or His proximity, but you do experience it when you pursue purity. Repentance, then, is the rejection of the world’s things so you can give your heart to Him.

And—here’s the baffling, beautiful, bounteous Good News—He welcomes that. He welcomes you, in Christ. And He meets you there, a relationship with the repentant.

So don’t be confused about repentance. Instead, cherish it.

— Tyler

From James 3: Cursing

“Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.” (v. 10)

There are more than a few ways we could approach the subject.

There’s the clear biblical impulse regarding purity in all things, to the best of our ability, as we are sanctified under grace. There’s the inborn sense that some things we could say should not be said. There’s your “I Love Jesus, But I Cuss a Little” coffee mug.

There are a lot of ways we could approach the subject, but let’s go with a question:

Aren’t you tired of the scummy, regretful, irrevocable weight of every impure word you permit?

Christians spend way too much effort trying to bend grace and twist it around their willful cursing, cussing, and lewdness. But this isn’t a “Christian freedom” issue. This is about the extent to which you choose to self-justify your sin and drag Jesus’ mercy into it.

Will any of us get it right all the time? No. But can we stop excusing our lack of discipline, our unlovely utterances, and our degraded speech?

Pray first. Then put in the work. And see if what you’ve permitted might be put to death.

— Tyler

From James 2: Tell and Show

“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” (v. 26)

Have you ever been mad at a movie?

Maybe you didn’t like a particular plot point or a character’s arc, or maybe they only told you half the story, to set up a sequel.

I find myself getting mad at movies—but for an altogether different reason. I get mad about how a story is composed, how the art of film is used ineffectively or inefficiently.

And here’s what I’m usually saying when I’m complaining:

“Don’t tell me! Show me!”

There is very little life in a story wherein all the characters just talk about the action. There is no excitement in hearing everything summarized by dialogue. I don’t want you to tell me about what you are going to do; I want to see you do it!

So it is with the Spirit’s words through James:

Don’t spend all your religious life talking. Instead, go and do! The Gospel may be rooted in words, but a Gospel-centered life will be reflected in your works. You don’t work to earn it. The works are the evidence of it.

So, instead of merely telling, let’s show. Let’s live lives that bring the Good News to life for our neighbors.

I assure you: It makes a better story, in the end.

— Tyler

From James 1: Open Ears

“My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.” (vv. 19-20)

In the world.

On social.

Behind the wheel.

With your spouse and with your kids.

Amidst all the politicking.

At church.

In all these relationships and all these arenas at all these times, choose to listen first. Choose to speak second. Choose to leave anger on the shelf.

Imagine the Gospel impact of a people who turn the temperature down, who love with open ears rather than open mouths.

Imagine it—and imagine you—and make the change.

— Tyler

From Acts 14: More, Not Fewer

“When they had appointed elders for them in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” (v. 23)

We need more churches, not fewer.

We have this toxic religious culture, especially in smaller rural communities, and it can be summarized like this: local church defensiveness. Because we’re desperate for increased attendance—or because we’re disappointed by waning membership—we get defensive. “Our neighborhood doesn’t need another church! People should come to the church that’s been here forever!” So we don’t pray, don’t partner, and don’t promote the growth of Jesus’ church beyond our own walls.

But the Christian impulse, from the start, has been more churches. More prayed-for elders and pastors. More fasting with hope. More gatherings in more places across more towns. And all of it is for Jesus’ singular glory, for the Gospel good.

Every time I read about the early church’s missional planting efforts, I’m reminded to pray for planting, still. Yes, even in my own backyard—because the church is about Jesus, not my ego and my preference.

Will you join me in praying for the growth of His church in every place?

— Tyler