2 Thess 1:11+12, To this end also we pray for you always that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order 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. 
 	Last week we realized that this first chapter of the Second Letter of Paul to the church at Thessalonica, although short in wording, contains many of the basic principles of our walk on this earth as God’s Church. There is much that we need to learn, as stated in these few passages, to reflect the life that we have in Jesus Christ. Our lives are for His purposes, and in those purposes, God is working, through trials and tribulations, to develop hearts that are solely unto Him. Since He is at work, because He loves us so manifestly, we are to give Him all thanksgiving, no matter what is going on in our lives.
	This thankfulness can only proceed from our hearts when we are fully confident in the truths as expressed in Rom 8:18 and 28. Rom 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Rom 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. It is because we know that God is at work in our lives, that God has all things well in hand, that God loves us that we can honestly give Him thanks for all that we experience on this earth. Of course, things are not always pleasant, but they are in our lives for a purpose. The purpose is that we are brought closer and closer to that living testimony of the One Who now indwells us, Jesus Christ. We also count on the truth of Phil 1:6, For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. God will complete with finality and perfection, all that He begins in our lives.
	As we are thankful to Him, so should our lives evidence thankfulness as the very course of our walk on this earth. We should be thankful for the parents that we have been given by God. We should be thankful for the spouses He has chosen for us. We should be thankful for the children that He has brought into our families. We should be thankful that God has joined us together in fellowship. We should be thankful for our education, our jobs, and our friends. As Paul states, in everything give thanks. But so often, we find ourselves not being thankful. We see this world as owing us something. Children expect things from their parents and receive them as if they are paying off a debt rather than with thanksgiving for every provision. Sadly, these examples can go on and on. 
Our society does us no favors as it instills that sense of entitlement into our minds and hearts and into the minds and hearts of our children. There is an ever increasing lack of gratitude in our culture. And this is so opposite what we should express in Christ. We did not deserve nor did we earn our salvation, our being made a completely new creation in Christ. Far from that, we deserved death, the death which Christ paid in our stead. As we are thankful for our salvation, so ought our lives express that thankfulness at all times. We should be a living expression of the thanksgiving that we have toward God and all His lovingkindness and tender mercies in our lives. As such, so ought we treat each other in a manner characterized with that thanksgiving. 
This thankfulness is especially necessary in the manner in which we are to regard suffering, trials, and tribulations. As we have seen, this world age runs from them because it sees only pain and hurt and loss and death and is deathly afraid of the consequences of this suffering. This age sees suffering as a curse and treats it as a plague. Many Christians have carried this false idea into the church and propagate it within the minds of other Christians. There is a mind set that, if we have suffering in our lives, it is because we have done something wrong and God is punishing us. A key error of this idea is that the focus is centered clearly and solely on us and how we are suffering for something we did or didn’t do.
In Christ, however, we have a much different view of God’s action in our suffering for the sake of Christ. Yes, all the pain and loss and death is still endured, but it is endured with the knowledge that as we are brought through each dilemma in Christ, we are that much closer to being the expressed testimony of Our Lord and Savior on this earth. There is that aspect in which we are chastened by God, if we deliberately choose to go against His will, but even that is in terms of God working to bring us back in line with His plan and His purposes for our benefit as His children. It is done with love and with patience and with mercy and with grace, not to defeat us, but to uplift us unto Himself in all the holiness of Christ Jesus.
Please realize and know that I am not saying that we need to go out and find suffering, or that suffering is a badge by which to measure ourselves against others in terms of the more we suffer the better Christian we are, or that we are to make severe trials and tribulations our life’s quest. Hardly. As God is at work, He will bring exactly that which is needed to work to His purpose in our lives. As with everything else, God has all things well in hand, including the testing and trial of our faith. We are to have a different concern with suffering, a concern as to what God desires as we are having our faith exercised. We are to see suffering from the heavenly vantage point of what God is accomplishing through each situation that He brings into our lives. It is on that basis that we thank Him for so loving us.
The IVP New Testament Commentary Series expresses a unique insight as to how we are to see and to accept God’s work in our suffering. Quote How do we react when trials come? When people exercise and diet in order to lose weight, they endure hardship because they have their goal continually before their mind's eye. They change their whole lifestyle in order to achieve this goal. Do God's people have such commitment like that spiritually? The endurance people need to achieve physical goals is similar to the kind of endurance Christians need spiritually when trials come upon them. We are willing radically to change our lifestyle and endure hardship for our physical well-being, but we are not often enough willing to endure things spiritually for our eternal well-being. At such times, we have no eternal perspective that God will be glorified. Enduring in faith now has as its goal not merely salvation and rest in the distant future but ultimately the glorification of God through our endurance in the present. End of quote (from IVP New Testament Commentary Series © 1992-2004. All rights reserved. For specific copyright information on each volume, see the copyright page.)
It is God, Who gives us the grace and the means necessary to see all things as coming through Him in love. This chapter gives three very specific examples of God meeting the needs of our endurance and thankfulness in everything. In verse 3, we find the growth of faith and love. 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; In verse 4, we are shown the work of faith and perseverance. …therefore, we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. And in verse 11, we have the work of faith and power. To this end also we pray for you always that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power;…
Faith and love, faith and perseverance, faith and power. In every case it is the faith of God that is at work to bring our hearts and lives into line with His perfect plan of grace. It is His faith at work to create that full trust in Him for the course of every step of our lives. It is His love that we express as we have that faith working effectively through every situation. It is His patience and perseverance that never tires, never gives up, never loses sight of His Glory in the midst of our spiritual crises. It is His faith and His power that carries us through every trial, every temptation, every circumstance, and every dilemma, with an increasingly greater resolve than we have ever known, to glorify Him in these lives that we live. 
In verse 11, the Apostle brings up the course of our lives in Christ. To this end also we pray for you always that our God may count you worthy of your calling… It is because we are called by God, that we are to lovingly, patiently, powerfully, and thankfully view everything that comes into our lives as having been ordained for His purpose alone. He has called us unto Himself. He has made the provision, the means, and the fulfillment of all that is necessary for us, in Christ Jesus, to be brought before Him by His Omnipotent call. The Apostle refers to this call a number of times as evidenced in 1 Cor 1:23-29, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. We belong to God because He chose us. He determined before the eternal ages of time were established, that we would belong to Him as we answered His call. That is the so great love with which He loved us. That is why we can trust Him fully to perform His magnificent work in our lives. We were not an after thought. We were not a happenstance, being in the right place at the right time. We were on His heart and He chose us unto Himself and He created the only avenue for us to respond to His call. Knowing that, what does it matter how He chooses to love us and to care for us and to prove Himself over and over again? He will do it!
Paul encourages Timothy with these truths in 2 Tim 1:8+9. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, It is because of God’s love at work in our lives that we are, daily, coming into a greater understanding of what it means to live by faith before God on this earth.
 This is proclaimed as well in Eph 1:18+19a, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. The Apostle Paul wanted all his readers, including us, to know that God has a stake in each one of us. We are precious unto Him and considered His inheritance. That is why He so fully and perfectly works on our behalf to bring us into the greater knowledge of our life in Christ.
Paul also states the following in Eph 4:1-3, I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. As a result of God’s call upon our lives, we are to live lives that reflect Him in everything we do. That is impossible of our own accord, as we already fully know. But, through the work of God, these characteristics that are well-pleasing to Him can be established in our lives. Humbleness, gentleness, patience, forbearance, love, preserving unity and being bonded together in peace are the result of what we go through in the building of God’s faith in our lives. 
The writer to the Hebrews as well encourages us to live according to the heavenly call of God in our lives. Heb 3:1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. We are to consider Jesus as we walk on this earth. In our every conversation, our every daily activity, our every struggle and triumph, we are to consider and look to Jesus as the source and the goal of the call of God upon our lives. We are to fill our minds and hearts and souls with the truth that we live unto Christ and Christ Alone.
We end this morning with the admonition of the Apostle Peter. Peter, as well, knew the value of what we suffer for the Lord. In 1 Peter 5:10, he writes, And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. This is the encouragement to get us through this life. God, Himself, will perfect and confirm and strengthen and establish us. And this He does through His most effective use of earthly suffering for the sake of our Christian development. We are not left to our own efforts and skills and endurance. It is all the work of God as He establishes the very life of Jesus Christ as our course of sojourning on this earth. Because God loves us, He takes us through those avenues which are the most effective in building up the Church, His Body, into the full stature of Christ, our Head. As we discover this great truth, we will find that we face every challenge, every trial, every situation, and every circumstance with the thanksgiving that God has all things well in hand. We may not completely know what is happening, but we can thank God, with all our hearts, that He is at work to establish His life in us for all of eternity.

To this end also we pray for you always that our God may count you worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order 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. Amen

Guests
Announcements: 	No Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting
			Women’s Meeting
			Young People’s Meetings
			Dupar’s 6 AM
			Dad’s Memorial Service – Wednesday @ 7 PM
Other announcements?	 Please visit the online guestbook and leave a comment or observation. It will be bound, after one year, and will be a comfort and keepsake for the entire family.
Birthdays:		Tomorrow – Heather Shelly and Mike Escalante
Tuesday – Jim Kolmus
			Wednesday – Erik Roe and Ikuko Schroeder
			Saturday – Felice Fausto
Anniversaries:	Thursday – Jason and Melissa Bryant
Today’s benediction is found in Psalms Chapter 48, verses 8-14, As we have heard, so have we seen In the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God; God will establish her forever. Selah. We have thought on Thy lovingkindness, O God, In the midst of Thy temple. As is Thy name, O God, So is Thy praise to the ends of the earth; Thy right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad, Let the daughters of Judah rejoice, Because of Thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go around her; Count her towers; Consider her ramparts; Go through her palaces; That you may tell it to the next generation. For such is God, Our God forever and ever; He will guide us until death. Amen