2 Thess 1:3, What Is Faith and How Does It Increase?

Tuesday May 23, 2023

Theme: We are to live by faith and it is to always be increasing by the endurance of obedience.

Main passage:

2Th 1:3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fitting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater.

1. The Christian life is to be lived by faith. Without faith it becomes dull and lifeless.
2. Faith is to always be increasing, present tense of verb “greatly enlarged,” 2Th 1:3.
   1. Paul prayed for this very thing in 1Th 3:10.
3. Faith can be defined as agreeing with what God says is true of life.
   1. What God says is true about important things is always antithetical to the world’s idea. Faith will always have us swimming against the current.
4. Increasing faith increases the spread of the gospel, 2Co 10:7.
   1. Paul convicts the Corinthians that they judge according to the appearance, but God does not work in that way.
   2. The weapons of our warfare are divinely powerful and not of the visible flesh.
5. We live by faith, 2Co 5:6.
   1. The context of “walk by faith and not by sight” is our faith in our heavenly destiny. Because of our destiny with Christ, we long to please Him (and we will be judged by Him, 2Co 5:10).
   2. Faith, therefore, produces works. James writes that faith without works is dead, Jam 2:26.
   3. Faith does good works with power, 2Th 1:11.
6. Faith is defined in Heb 11:1 as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
   1. Biblical knowledge alone does not increase faith, but faith in that knowledge profits us to a mature faith.
   2. Faith will wax and wane in each believer. God never stops encouraging our increase in faith and He will never leave us.
      1. Example, the call of Moses (Exo 5:22-23).
7. How does faith increase? The Lord reveals that faith increases over time spent in dutiful obedience to Him, Luk 17:5-10.
   1. Like losing weight and getting in shape requires a long time of diligence and obedience, so does increasing the power and quality and frequency of faith.
      1. There are no “get faith quick” schemes that work.
      2. Be patient and keep plugging with Scripture and application of your obedience to all things.
      3. Know for certain that your faith will mature and it will produce an exciting quality of life.