Canaan Fellowship

Dr. Bill Teubl

Download

Bruce Hempel

Download

Dr. Bill Teubl – Loveh2>

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Someone who is learning to embrace God’s ways will learn to love.

Verse 1 – Paul is saying there is a way to please God.
Pleasing God is a matter of the heart. More specifically we can do it through faith.
There are two doors to this growth; we should learn to use both doors:
1) Front door – live in faith
2) Backdoor – develop good habits with a sincere heart, and God will speak to me.
Through our good behavior, God will help our faith to grow. It is a mistake to think that our faith can grow when we have bad habits.

Verse 3 – Paul takes a general area (a holy person) and focuses on something specific (purity)
If we are to learn to take a wife or husband in holiness, then we must learn to relate to
brothers and sisters in holiness.

Verse 8 – this call to holiness in general (and specifically purity) is a call to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians come up against practical battles that they find daunting and hard, so they avoid them.

Verse 9 – The spirit teaches us how to grow in faith and love.

Verse 11 – After stating that we should grow in love, he says that we should live quiet lives.
Why should we live quietly? There is a tendency for people who struggle with an area of life to accuse others who have the same issue.
If we mind our own affairs, the test of love will be to ask the Lord whether we have the same problem before we speak to others. Being annoyed by someone else is a great way for us to evaluate ourselves to see if we struggle with a similar thing.

Dr. Bill Teubl – More and Moreh2>

More and more – airplane with two wings – no plane can fly with only one wing.

The two wings are faith and love. (Loving works.)

Things we need to grow in more and more:

1. Love one another
2. Purity
3. Discipline
4. Peace
5. Faith
6. Faithfulness with money
7. Wisdom
8. Patience
9. Humility
10. Joy
11. Holiness
12. Hope
13. Faithfulness with time
14. Kindness
15. Self-control
16. Gentleness
17. Goodness

He has been going door to door doing the census and has met many delightful elderly people, obviously in discomfort of struggling in other ways, yet gracious and kind; he has also met many young unpleasant people – his desire is to grow in graciousness.