All posts for the month February, 2026

Amos – Sermon Manuscript

-All these angry men are calling out various ways God’s people aren’t living up to His standards. So last week we saw in Joel a warning about “The day of the Lord,” that idea comes up again this week in Amos, but with a slightly different focus. Amos is all about justice, worship, and God. This was a challenging sermon for me to condense down because there’s SO much in this book! So I’ll be for sure be doing a “Sermon Scraps” (video tomorrow where I talk about what ended up on the cutting room floor) to talk more about it. But as we walk through this book today, pay attention to what this teaches us about true worship of God that He loves, how God defines justice, and how it all goes back to the character of the one true God.

READ/PRAY (Amos 4, pg. 813)

  1. What is Social Justice?

-One of the things we have to talk about when in order to properly understand Amos is social justice. Now, for some of you, your ears may be pricked and you might be nervous about where this is going because those 2 words aren’t supposed to go together, and anytime they do it’s smuggling in a whole host of secular ideologies that are against the Bible. That may be true in some cases, but I’d like us to potentially have some of our thinking related to that term stretched so that we can better understand what Amos’s message is, as well as some of the implications for us today.

-First – by itself, I would hope no one is opposed to the concept of social justice. Justice, after all, is inherently social in its outworkings. There can’t be justice unless there’s at least 2 parties involved in the process (which means it’s social)! Unfortunately, our world has taken this concept, smashed those 2 words together without thinking through how we can get true justice, and forced it to mean something that we wouldn’t. We’re going to wait a few weeks to really dig into what the Bible says about justice (that’s the theme of another minor prophet!), but one of the keys that we need to be aware of is that we don’t get to define justice, justice is determined by the Creator of the universe.

-Second – social justice isn’t something new that just developed in our culture and nation. As you’ll see through our walk through Amos, God cares greatly about social justice, about ensuring that societies (groups of people living together) are marked out by justice as He defines it: care for people who can’t care for themselves.

-A couple thoughts on this from other people to share with you, and why we’re talking about it today. First, from Peter Gentry, whose book I recommended at the beginning of this series:

-We have a number of things like this in our language. Think of the phrase “by and large” or “try and do” they’re referring to the same thing, and if you break the 2 words apart you lose the original intent of what is being said. Similar with the prophets when they use “justice” and “righteousness.”

-I think the key verse from this book is Amos 5:24, and what 2 words are right next to each other. Justice and righteousness! Amos is saying they need to be marked as being a socially just society!

-Jesus talked about this reality, too. Think of what He said when He was asked what the greatest commandment was, His reply in Matt. 22 was:

-Here we see 2 realities that are connected to each other. First, we must love God. But then the love of God has to be made visible in our love for our neighbors (vertical AND horizontal). And do you see that Jesus says this second command is like the first? That is, if you truly love God, you will truly love your neighbor, which means you will care about the society being marked by justice.

-In our denomination, we’ve had this conversation over the last number of years! There are people that have accused the EFCA of being “woke” or “social justice warriors,” so the EFCA responded by writing a statement titled “Where we stand in the EFCA.” And our church offered a class where we walked through each one of the 8 statements on there (you can google it to read all of them if you want, I’m just going to use the first one for today). But friends, these issues matter! We MUST talk about them in the church, AND talk about them carefully, because otherwise we won’t know how to truly love our neighbors. So here’s the statement from the EFCA:

-Did you notice that social justice in this context is in capital letters to signify a specific thing? This is a whole methodology that contradicts Scripture in foundation yet still tries to get at the same goal of what Jesus offers us. For this thinking, everything is condensed down power dynamics between the oppressed or the oppressor, and the goal is to elevate the oppressed while you penalize the oppressor. But think that through to it’s ultimate conclusion: if you just continue penalizing one group and elevating the other, don’t they at some point switch places? Suddenly the formerly oppressed is now the oppressor. What do you do then? Do we just keep bouncing back and forth over time? This isn’t a sustainable way to live!

-The Bible gives us a different picture. It says all of us are responsible people who can be both oppressors and the oppressed, and sometimes at the same time! The Bible gives us a model of redemption where the person who has all the power and influence willingly lowers themselves to identify with the oppressed and then free them and elevate them back to a place of dignity and honor. The Bible argues that the oppressed or oppressor dynamics don’t get to the deeper reality of sin that’s affects all of us! 

-To summarize this point: our God is a God of justice, and He wants His people to be people of justice (who reflect Him to the rest of the world). That means that one of the places that we’re called to pursue justice is social (with no capital letters!). That’s what we say when we pray the Lord’s prayer, where we ask that His kingdom would come on earth the same as it is in heaven (and heaven is the place where perfect justice reigns and sets the direction for everything that takes place). 

-We need to keep this in mind with everything we’ve talked about so far: if you remember Hosea, the focus of that book was justice between us and God (vertical), in Amos the focus shifts to justice between each other (horizontal)

  • The Message of Amos:

-Who was Amos? Amos’s name means “to carry a burden or a load” which once again gets to the purpose of the book where the role of follower of God is to help carry the burdens of others. But his self-description here labels him as a “sheep breeder” (some of your translations may say “shepherd”) the word he uses is not the typical one used of shepherds, in another place it’s used to describe a King, so it’s a shepherd of a LARGE flock. He also describes himself later on as taking care of sycamore figs, and sycamore trees grew near the coast, so it’s likely that Amos was a wealthy man who was able to speak to many of the excesses in the culture because he knew it well. Another reason scholars think Amos was wealthy is because this book is written with a high level of skill. He uses irony throughout to make his point, he also writes very carefully which signifies a high level of education. Finally note that it says the WORDS of Amos, of what he SAW, which is a good way of summarizing the book: words against Israel accompanied by visions for Israel.

-Just to situate ourselves, Amos identifies himself as prophesying during the reigns of Kings Uzziah & Jeroboam, 2 years before the earthquake. No one knows when this earthquake took place, but the first readers would have known exactly what he was talking about. This makes Amos a contemporary of Jonah, Hosea (who we studied earlier), Isaiah, and Micah. Here’s a picture I’ve shared before of where the prophets were stationed, Amos is called to go north to Bethel to prophesy.

  1. Judgment on the Nations (1-2)

-The judgment begins with a note that this is coming from the Lord who is coming from Jerusalem, not Bethel or Dan, the competing religious sites in Israel. 

-There’s some debate about how to summarize the ways God’s indicting the nations, but do you notice that they all begin the same way? 3, then 4. 7 throughout the Bible refers to perfection, so it could be saying they’re perfectly evil. The book of Proverbs also uses this phrase regularly, so it could also be a common phrase that the people would have used and understand that has been lost to time! In Proverbs it always is followed by the correct number, this time it’s not, which just makes it even more confusing! 

-1 thing we DO know is the ordering is significant to communicate a specific point. If you look at this map, you can see how the judgments are handed out. Damasus – Gaza, Tyre – Edom. Who’s in the middle of that X? And then we start circling in from there: Ammonites – Moab – then we get to God’s people at 7. And remember what I just said about 7 referring to completion in the Bible? This is where the people would have expected the Lord to stop! And we know from Amos 7, that Amos also was prophesying in Bethel, which means his journey looked like this: 

-For all these, the people of Israel would have been celebrating! AND surely that would be the end of it, because 3+4 is 7, so obviously Amos was building up to Israel being the one true remaining group. But that’s not where he stops, is it? And not only does it not stop, but Israel gets the longest condemnation!

-And I think this serves as a picture of how we can summarize the reason for God’s judgment: because of a lack of social justice towards other people. Do you see the description here? People who are righteous (morally upright citizens) are being sold to build out wealth, those who are poor are being sold to buy a pair of sandals, and it gets worse! They step on the poor as they pass by, grinding their faces into the ground, and get in the way of the needy for their own self benefit. And this is probably one of the more mild descriptions of the ways people are being treated. 

-I’ve shared these pictures before, but the nation that’s the biggest threat to the people at this time is the Assyrians. I got to visit the British Museum in London a couple years ago and saw some unbelievable treasures, including these doors. You can’t read it, but the plaque on the right side of these doors says, “Enter the palace of the Assyrian king, ruler of the world’s first empire. The sculptures in these rooms are from the royal capitals of Nineveh, Khorsbad and Nimrud.” Wood doesn’t last the few millennia it would take for me to see them, so these are replicas of the originals, but they do have the bronze bars that held them together (those last a little longer). Here’s just 2 of them: on the left you can see a field of people being crucified on stakes, and on the right you can see the slaughtering of children. What do you think seeing that every day on your city gates would do to the psyche of a civilization? And this is the world in which God is calling these civilizations out!

-Compared to this way of living, Israel’s sins seem minor, don’t they? They’re “only” alienating the poor, not murdering them brutally, right? But that’s not how God sees it. Of all the nations, Israel should know better! And that’s where Amos spends the bulk of the rest of this letter:

  • Words to Israel (3-6)

-The difference between Israel (and Judah) and all these other nations is they know better. God’s covenant stipulations and expectations weren’t given to anyone else, just Israel, and how is Israel living? No better than the rest of the nations! And God says He will hold them responsible for it. God says that at Bethel (means “house of the Lord”) He will punish them, the alternative sites of worship have become places of sin, and it’s because they’ve living in luxury while they ignore or take advantage of the poor. See, they’re so wealthy they have both winter and summer houses, their houses are full of beautiful (and expensive) things.

-And this begins the contrast God will make in these chapters between their acts of worship to Him and their lack of lives of worship marked by care for the suffering and marginalized. We’ll talk about this more later, but as we walk through this pay attention to what God expects from His people in regard to the worship of Him. Do you think God cares how we worship Him? 

-The excesses continue in Amos 4, where Amos compares women to cows of Bashan signifying that they are healthy with excess. Meanwhile, these women who live in excess oppress the poor and needy. But it goes on, they not only oppress the poor, they also make demands of their husbands. So God again invites them to come to their places of worship to continue in their sin (insert joke about Bethel here)

-And look at what God says they’re doing at these places of “worship.” All these things listed are things God expects them to do! But not at the expense of the poor and needy. It’s not enough to turn God’s commands into a checklist so that you can ensure you’re “good enough,” God actually expects you to live an entirely different life.

-God’s condemnation continues in chapter 5, but with a twist of irony. I just want to briefly point out the continuity between what we saw in Joel last week and what we see in Amos this week. Remember that topic of “the day of the Lord”? Here it is again! The people are expecting that day to be amazing, but that’s the opposite, and Amos lays some irony on thick to explain: imaging running away from a lion and run straight into a bear! Yikes! Or he finally escapes into his home, leans against a railing and is bitten by a snake! This is supposed to be funny. 

-And this comparison continues through the end of the chapter, and builds to what I think is the primary point of this book. Once again, God is calling out their acts of worship as useless, but it doesn’t just say He’s not happy, it says He HATES them! Their offerings are pointless because He won’t accept them, and He plugs His ears when they’re using music to try to worship Him. 

-Instead the people are supposed to pursue justice and righteousness for everyone in their nation, and only if they pursue those things (which remember can be summarized as social justice). They must care for the poor among them. And that same drumbeat continues through chapter 6.

  • Visions for Israel (7-9:10)

-God then reveals some things to Amos by giving him visions. First locusts sent from God to destroy their crops, but Amos begs God to relent and He does. Then there’s a vision of fire destroying the land, and Amos again begs God to stop and He does. Then there’s a vision of a plumbline, where God hands the plumbline of His standards up to the people and no one can measure up, no one is aligned to God’s perfect expectations (even though He told them how they should live!)

-After these visions come a brief interlude where Amaziah, the priest of Bethel comes out to confront Amos, but Amos continues prophesying and speaking down to Amaziah.

-The visions continue in chapter 8, with a basket of summer fruit. The Hebrew word for “summer fruit” (qayits) sounds similar to the Hebrew word for “end.” (qets) God’s way of saying the end is coming. Finally, the last vision is the Lord standing beside the altar where He promises the destruction of all the people.

  • Restoration (9:11-15)

-But that’s not where this book ends. After chapters of judgment and destruction, the book ends looking far into the future where God promises to completely turn the tides of the destruction, but it only comes about by the repentance of His people.

-He says He will rebuild, restore, repair the house of David. But remember back in the beginning when it seemed like the bad news was going to stop before it got to Israel, now the reverse is true, the blessing won’t stop with Israel, it will go out to ALL the nations! Everyone can become a part of this blessed community where true justice reigns! And look what that day will look like:

-You won’t be able to wait from planting to harvesting, the wine will flow in abundance. God’s telling them they think they’ve seen prosperity now, but they’ve seen nothing. And all this is God’s doing, no one will be able to take them away from their land. And this book ends, appropriately, with God having the final word. He has spoken, this will happen.

  • Amos for Us Today

-What’s the point of worship? Why do we meet here every week? I’ve asked this question before, but it really comes to the front in this book: when we gather as God’s people, as the church, is it for believers or for unbelievers? That’s one of the biggest questions churches ask! But it’s the wrong question, because we gather for God. So then the question becomes: was God honored in our worship today? Unfortunately for many people today the only metric is: did the music emotionally move me? That’s the wrong question to be asking, God says that’s what he hates! Instead, what Amos teaches us is that worship is meant to change us, to make us more like Jesus. That means sometimes you might feel a little uncomfortable here because you’re being stretched to change! That’s not a bad thing! So instead of rating our worship services either on how much you liked it or how much it emotionally moved you, let’s think about whether or not God was honored and glorified through what we did.

-The inclusion of EVERYone. God has commanded His church to go out to the ends of the earth, but what we might miss it that wasn’t a new message! God’s plan from the beginning has been that He would be the God of the entire world, but it requires people who are going out to share that message with others. AND 

-One of the ways we demonstrate that reality, that we’re truly worshipping God is that we care for the poor and marginalized. This is not optional for Christians! The only option is which of the poor and marginalized is God calling you to. I heard someone in a parenting talk say that God told is to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and every morning when I wake up I have a house full of both of those things, so for those of you with kids, this command is for you every day! AND for all of us, none of us are excluded from the command to love our neighbor, and work to bring God’s true peace and justice to bear in our world today. What is God calling you to do to accomplish that goal? I’ve talked about this before, but one of the best ways for you to care for others is by sponsoring a child. Our denomination supports kids through Global Fingerprints, and they’re doing some really cool things across the world! Maybe it’s coming to help with Project Count on Me on Saturday, maybe it’s creating a “blessing bag” that you keep in your car to hand out to people who are begging on the streets. And maybe it’s as simple as inviting someone over to your house. There’s all sorts of ways we can do this, I’m just beginning to scratch the surface here, but I’d encourage you to take some time to pray and ask how God wants you to carry out His mission of reaching out to EVERYone. 

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by mikethestrand on February 22, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 22, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/02/22/amos-sermon-manuscript/

Joel – Sermon Manuscript

-One of the interesting things about these prophets is that all their names have specific meanings that tend to correlate to their role. Hosea’s name means “salvation” or “deliverance” which shows the way God’s people were saved or delivered from their sins. Joel’s name means Yahweh is God. But did you know the Jesus wasn’t the name of God’s Son? Jesus’s name in Hebrew was actually Joshua, which means “Yahweh is salvation.” So when the angel appears to Mary, he tells her that she should name her son Joshua because He will save His people from their sins. So why do we call Him Jesus?

-When the OT was being translated from Hebrew into Greek, there were some words that were transliterated (moved from Hebrew into Greek without translating, each letter for the corresponding letter in Greek). We saw this last week when our Bible’s transliterated the names of Hosea’s children. So Jeshua in the Hebrew became Iesous in the Greek. Then English came on the scene, and the first English translation put the name as Ihesus, which in the KJV became Iesus. So Jesus comes from a transliteration of a transliteration, and because of the impact of the KJV, we refer to Him as Jesus in all our English Bibles today.

-We’re going to look at the significance of Jesus’s name today, and it may surprise you that it comes up in Joel!

READ/PRAY (pg. 807)

  1. The Day of the Lord

-One of the repeated phrases throughout this book is, “The Day of the Lord,” a future moment where God would come in judgment to pay back the enemies of His people. It’s used in a number of other prophets in the OT, but it also makes some appearances in the NT. Some people call it just “that day” or will refer to it as “the great day of the Lord”

-Talked about in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, and most explicitly in Zephaniah. Now, this gets to one of the biggest questions surrounding Joel. Think back to last week when I talked about the dates of these books. Many of them begin with the name of the prophet, followed by the kings who reigned during their ministries, see here’s the first verse from Hosea. Compare that to the beginning of Joel. So there’s debate about where we should historically locate Joel, since there’s similar themes to some other books, is Joel using terminology from them or are they borrowing language from Joel? If you remember this chart from last week that placed the dates of the various prophets, you can see a question mark next to Joel. The big event in Joel is a famine due to a swarm of locusts, which could place it in any of these centuries.

-We’ll talk about this more thoroughly when we get to Zechariah, but I think we need to build a foundation of this “day” that the prophets are talking about here to help us understand the message of Joel! 

-At the time, the Israelites were anxious for the day of the Lord because it was viewed in a completely positive light, where the other nations who had defeated God’s people would be judged. But the message of the prophets is that the judgment would be negative, not positive! Look how Isaiahdescribes this day:

-And this isn’t just an OT focus, look how Revelation both describes the day and what that day is referred to as. So instead of being a positive thing, the prophets warn us that that the Day of the Lord is going to be terrifying! And where that Revelation passage ends is the question Joel will help us answer: Who can stand?

  • The Message of Joel

-The focus of this book is trying to prepare people for the day of the Lord by using the picture of the current disaster from locusts as a picture of what will someday be coming from an invading army.

-Now, because it’s the Bible and probably the most studied and dissected book in the world, there’s debate about what’s being talked about! The debate is what exactly is Joel talking about, and is it different between chapters 1 & 2, or is he just talking about the same event? Either Joel uses locusts to describe an invading army, or there’s no army he’s just talked about how destructive the locusts are, OR 1 chapter is locusts and 2 is an army of people. Again, it doesn’t help that we can’t specifically date this book, which slightly complicates figuring out what exactly Joel’s talking about. BUT I would take the position that Joel 1 is referring to a real ecological disaster that serves as a picture of what an invading army would do in Joel 2, followed how God will redeem and restore His people in Joel 3. Remember, Joel’s name means “Yahweh is God,” and it fits with his primary message of God’s upcoming judgment of the wicked and restoration of the righteous.

  1. Judgment in the Day of the Lord (1:1-2:17)

-The first reminder is that this event is supposed to be significant for the people, significant enough that it becomes a part of the family story. What’s amazing, to me, about this is that throughout the Bible, God commands His people to repeat stories down through the generations. 

-2 brief examples. My mind has been in Joshua a lot the past few weeks, and one of the amazing stories in that book is that the nation is able to cross the Jordan river on dry ground because God stops the river from flowing (similar to what He did when they left Egypt). Once the whole nation had crossed, God tells Joshua to take 12 stones from the middle of the river and bring them to their camp, and then set up another 12 stone memorial in the middle of the river as a reminder of what God had done for them. And notice how God describes it: 

The nation is supposed to talk about God’s provision for them.

-Second is in Deut. 6, as God tells His people how they’re supposed to live (just so you keep this in mind from last week, don’t miss that the one true God doesn’t leave us in the dark, He tells us how we should live!) And look what God says they’re supposed to do with these words: repeat them to your children. This is God’s way of saying: know your history, know your story, so that you can know how you got where you are today. AND as we see in Joel, don’t just repeat the good stories! Share the difficulties and struggles God has taken you through, don’t just give your kids or your friends the Instagram reel of your life, talk about the times and seasons where you weren’t sure if God was going to show up. 

-I’m not sure if you know this yet, but life is HARD! And one of the things I think we need to teach kids is that it’s possible to navigate and persevere through difficult things. Sometimes the difficulty is because of our own stupidity, and sometimes things just happen to us, but let your kids know that you survived!

-In the case of Joel, what has happened that the people had survived is a plague of locusts. Just a few years ago, locusts were actually in the news because in Kenya they were facing the destruction of their crops from locusts, the BBC called it “The biblical locusts plagues of 2020.” And look just how complete this plague is for Joel 1:4:

-Nothing is left, they’re facing starvation in ways that we can’t begin to comprehend today! And when their entire economy depends on agriculture this is like facing the great depression of 1930s (close enough that we have to specify which century now!) Joel goes on through this chapter to say the grapevines have been ruined, fruit trees are destroyed, even the animals are grieving and groaning. 

-And this was something that God had promised! Remember to last week where I said the primary role of the prophets was to remind the people what God had said and to call them back to uphold their end of the covenant? God always keeps His Word, both for His blessings and His curses. And in Deut. 28, God says:

-And what’s the proper response of the people? They’re supposed to wake up! (5), grieve (8), be ashamed (11), dress in sackcloth and lament (13), announce a sacred fast and a solemn assembly (14) Why? Look at vs. 15. This is the first time that phrase is mentioned. And unfortunately, even though this day is terrible, it’s not THAT day! It’s near, this plague is a picture of the judgment and devastation that will come from God on THAT day, so brace yourself! Look at the way the Lord is spelled out in your Bible, do you see the smaller font, but uppercase letters? In the OT that’s the way our modern Bibles note where the divine name “Yahweh” is being used, you can see it previously in vs. 14, 9, & 1. If the letters aren’t capitalized it’s using a different Hebrew word.

-And that warning continues in chpt. 2, he doubles down on the reality that the day of the Lord is coming, and look at how he describes it in vs. 2, and part of the reason I think this is referring to something in the future is because of his description of something that “never existed in ages past and never will again.” He’s using the plague as a picture of what THAT day is going to look like.

-And to see how complete this destruction is, look at vs. 11. Nothing can stand in the way of this army, nothing can stand against them, leading to God asking the rhetorical question: who can endure it? The answer is no one!

-And friends, apart from God’s miraculous intervention that’s where we’re stuck. Paul in Eph. 2 describes us as dead in our sins. If God hadn’t brought us from death to life no one would be able to stand in His presence. And we know that about God! The fact that we preach a “gospel” which means “good news” means there must be hope in the midst of this destruction, right? Let’s see the way God answers that question, who can endure?

-God’s people can, if they follow through on God’s commands to seek repentance. And do you notice that Joel calls out a false repentance? Friends, how easy is it to act remorseful but not actually be repenting? To grieve that you got caught, not that you were sinning. God invites us to repent and provides a way of dealing with that sin, not just looking the other way and ignoring or penalizing and holding it against you but casting it as far as the East is from the West. And how often do we see a fake response in our world? People apologizing “if you were offended,” or apologizing for hurting you, but not admitting that what they did was wrong. And that’s only if someone actually apologizes! Think of what we’re seeing with the release of all these Epstein files! I’ll be honest, it’s pretty hard for me to take most of the apologies seriously when these people have had years or decades to apologize, but they waited. Is there actual regret for what they participated in, or is it merely posturing – putting on a show so you look good to others. That’s the kind of “repenting” that God is calling out here. He wants true repentance from the heart, not a show of repentance without any inner transformation.

-And notice how it describes God: gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love. Church – this is why it’s so important for us to have good theology, a good grasp on who God is. Since we know that God is gracious and compassionate we can respond with repentance! If God was malicious or angry we should be afraid to admit we’re sinners, but that’s not our God. Our God is slow to anger and overflowingwith steadfast, faithful love (Hebrew words chesed which is very hard to translate). Sally Lloyd Jones calls it: “Never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.” Think about that comparison: slow to anger. God’s first reaction isn’t in anger, it takes Him a LONG time to get angry. But God’s first reaction to true repentance is forgiveness. He’s slow to anger but QUICK to forgiveness. And if you think about that, isn’t that exactly what you’d hope for from Him? You don’t want him to be quick to anger and slow to forgiveness because we’re ALWAYS going to sin! If He weren’t slow to anger we’d be toast!

-Then with that reminder of who God is, the priests can call people to a true repentance (vs. 15-17) where once their sins are dealt with, God can be with them again.

  • The Mercy of the Lord (2:18-3:21)

-Now that the people know what God is like and they move to respond in repentance, how does God respond? Just as He promised! He will restore everything they’ve lost. God spares His people because they have responded in repentance. 

-God says He will repay His people for the lean years. God’s blessings will pour out on His people, but even more importantly than the blessings: 

-God will be present with His people. They won’t be looking to idols as their source of comfort anymore. BUT that doesn’t happen on this side of Jesus’s return! Which is what God goes on to predict, and this gets us to those near and far future fulfillments that we talked about last week but hold onto that for just a minute.

-The next key to Joel is that when that day of the Lord comes it will be marked by a revival among the people. Look at what He says in 28-29:

-Previously, God’s Spirit only indwelt people for a short period of time, not permanently, and it was primarily those who were tasked with leading the nation (kings, priests, prophets). But now God says He’ll pour out His Spirit on ALL humanity, and when He says ALL he means it! Sons and daughters (suddenly there’s no gender divisions in salvation), old men and young men (suddenly there’s no age or generational divisions), and male and female slaves (suddenly there’s no class or economic distinctions). God’s Spirit can live in any and every one! I think this is what Paul’s talking about in Gal 3:28 when he says: 

-And back to Joel, that’s what God says too: EVERYONE. 

-The final chapter gives the other perspective of the day of the Lord. There’s a different response from God to those who don’t turn in repentance to God. If you look at the footnote of your Bible, you’ll see that Jehoshaphat means the Lord will judge. God is reminding His people that even if it looks like the nations around them are flourishing in their defeat of them, the end result will be completely different for them. God will respond to their lack of repentance with judgment. But even in the midst of that judgment, look at how God describes Himself for His people: 

-A refuge and stronghold, a place where they can be protected and preserved from the incoming judgment and destruction of the nations. And look how God promises to pour out His blessings on His people:

-In order to understand how we should respond to this book, I think we need to see how the NT writers interpret Joel’s words, so there’s 3 key passages that I think help us understand what God is teaching to His people through all time:

  • The Use of Joel in the New Testament (Acts 2; Romans 10:13; Revelation 9)

-2 key changes that Peter makes:

-Peter says it is IN the last days, where Joel says “After this.” Peter is saying this is the sign you’ve been waiting for! The last days have started NOW, but those last days aren’t fully realized, just like the 2 mountains.

-He also adds in 18 that “they will prophesy.” Peter is saying what is taking place is prophesying, we think it’s just the future, but Peter is showing us that it is speaking in the power of God in unique ways, sometimes speaking to what’s happening right now. 

-More importantly, after quoting from Joel, Peter does a bit of logic building in the Greek to point out exactly how this salvation comes through a name. In the Greek, the word for Lord is kurios (no special marker in our English Bibles), so he begins with a reference to Yahweh from the OT, then he goes on to talk about God raising this Jesus in 32. Then he goes on to equate Jesus with the Lord (this is a key verse Jesus uses to describe Himself in Matt. 22) and lands by saying in vs. 36: God has made this Jesus the kurios, the Lord God. 

-The people are convicted, and they ask what they should do, and what does Peter say? Repent and be baptized (those are connected to each other), in what name? The name of Jesus. The promise that those who call on the correct name will be saved was hidden to Joel, but with the arrival of Jesus has been revealed! We know that name! We know who we should call to if we want to be saved!

-This is exactly the same argument Paul uses in Rom. 10.

-Lastly, just so we can begin to understand the way the day of the Lord works, listen to one of the things John sees in Rev. 9. 

-And there’s more descriptions of these locusts in later verses. In Joel, the locusts are described as lions (1:6), complete destruction in the front and back (2:3) perhaps like a scorpion, like horses specifically war hoses (2:4), their sound is described like chariots (2:5). Do you think there might be some parallels between what God revealed to both Joel and John? I tried emphasizing this point when I preached through Rev. in 2024, but how much of Revelation do we misinterpret because we don’t catch these OT references and allusions? And what if the verses in Revelation are supposed to remind us of what we just talked about as an application from Joel? Unless you call on the name of the Lord, you will be destroyed.

-So friends, as we conclude this sermon, the question before you is: what’s going to happen to you on the Day of the Lord? Today we’ve seen the reminder that unless we repent and believe in the name of Jesus we will not be saved.

-Peter says that there is no other name we should look to for salvation, there’s no hope for salvation from anyone or anything else.

-And because God is slow to anger, Paul tells us in Rom. 2:4 that that trait is God’s kindness and is meant to lead us to repentance. If you repent and believe, then the Day of the Lord is something to get excited for! It’s the day where our faith will be made sight, where the spiritual realm will be visible to us, where we’ll see our Savior and King returning to bring us home!

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by mikethestrand on February 15, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 15, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/02/15/joel-sermon-manuscript/

Hosea – Sermon Manuscript

-I’ve been looking forward to this series for a while! Since I came here I’ve been trying to alternate between OT & NT, trying to cover an assortment of genres and themes. Last time we were in a minor prophet was 2021 when I preached through Amos. This time I’m going to take a different approach, we’re going to look at 1 entire book each week, looking at the themes of the book, see what they teach us about God, and how we are to respond as God’s covenant people today. 

-If you didn’t pick up, I just said a “Minor prophet.” When we hear that we generally think of something like the minor leagues in baseball, we hear it as if they’re “lesser than.” When the Bible was being compiled into parchments, all 12 prophets were put on 1 scroll because they were smaller, it was often referred to as “the book of the 12.” So when you heard minor prophet, if it helps, just replace the word minor with “smaller.”

-One note for you before we read the text, we’d been doing a monthly memory verse, I’m doing something different with this sermon series – instead of a monthly verse, there will be a weekly key verses that I think helps summarize the content of the book. If you want to continue memorizing them, by the end of this series you’ll have a good grasp on this section of Scripture!

READ/PRAY – Hos. 1 (pg. 797)

  1. Why and How Should We Read the Prophets?

-Before we dig into this book, we need to do a little work on the why and how we should go about understanding these books, because there’s some things that to us are confusing, but to the original audience would have been completely understandable. These books recall specific historical events, reference various kings and nations, and address God’s desires for His people in how they’re supposed to behave. If we don’t know those events and kings, we’re going to miss some of what the prophets are trying to teach us. First the why, then the how: 

-The first and most important reason why we should read and study these books is fairly obvious, but I don’t ever want to assume it. These books are a part of God’s Word. We don’t have the right to pick and choose the portions that we read and study and ignore the rest. Yes, these take some more work for us to understand and apply to our lives and context today, but they are all inspired by God, which means according 2 Tim. 3:16, that they are “profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.” Because they are a part of God’s inspired Word, we read them!

-Now for the how to read them. The first thing we need to do is some history. One of the books I read for this series said there are 2 primary reasons we struggle to interpret these books: One is all the authors assume you know everything that has taken place in Israel’s history, the story of God’s people. The other is that they’re dealing with current events to their day. So we need to know both the story of Israel and the events that happened that the prophets are focusing on. These books were written over the course of 3 centuries: 8-6thcenturies BC. 

-One of the most significant events in Israel’s history was the splitting of the kingdom. The heyday of Israel was under the rule of King David, the shepherd boy and giant slayer. But the glory days only lasted for 2 generations. David’s son Solomon was led to worship false gods by his variety of wives and concubines, which led to God taking tearing the nation apart, but for Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. 10 tribes went to the north and appointed another king (Israel) 2 tribes stayed in the south and were called Judah (if you need help remembering all this, ask the kids, they’ve been learning this story with actions!)

-The king in the north (Israel) was worried that if his citizens traveled to Jerusalem regularly to worship he would lose their allegiance, so he set up 2 alternative worship sites with their own priests and altars, 1 in the far north side of the nation and 1 in the far south side of the nation (1 Kings 12). 

-Because of their idolatry, God punishes the people, first with the Assyrians in the 9th century BC, who eventually destroyed the northern kingdom in 722 BC (hence why most of the prophets focus on Judah), then came the Babylonians, then the Persians, and under the Persians, a group was allowed to return to Jerusalem and begin to rebuild the temple.

-If you want to read about this history, you can find it all in 1 & 2 Kings! So these prophets are writing and preaching during the reigns of various kings. 

-The other important aspect that sits as the backdrop to all the prophets is an assumption that everyone knows about the covenants God has made with His people. I like the way this professor from TEDS defines a covenant:

-A few things to note. See that it’s enduring, that means there is no sunset clause to this covenant. There are no “outs” and no expiration date, it’s eternal.

-Then notice it’s a “binding obligation to specified stipulations” that means there are expectations for how the parties are to behave toward each other. This is why the first 5 books of the Bible (referred to as the Pentateuch) are so important for us to know if we want to understand the prophets. Those books give us the stipulations God had for His people. And with that covenant, God promises His people that if they keep their side, He will bless them, provide everything they need, and protect them from other nations. But it required them to obey.

-Next, it’s taken under oath. Both parties are agreeing to this, and if they break their side of the covenant they will be punished. 

-Ratified, made sure by a visual act. Think of when you buy a house, you sign your life away dozens of times, it’s a visual act with a visible reminder (all those pages with your signature that show you’ll pay off your house in a date that feels incredibly far in the future).

-There are 5 key covenants in the OT: Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, and New. Just so we can see what they look like, we’ll take a look at 2 of them, the first and the last. Noah, after the flood had receded and the earth was dry, walked out and God made this covenant with him. It’s between God and all the earthly creatures, God won’t destroy the world again with a flood, and humans are expected to honor life. And the sign for this covenant is a rainbow.

-Repeatedly throughout the Bible, God’s covenant partner fails to uphold their side of the bargain. So the culmination of the covenants in the Bible is one that God’s people CAN’T break. God says He will literally write His law on their hearts, their desire will be to obey Him and God will forever deal with their sin. Notice God says “The days are coming” So often when we hear the word prophet our minds jump to telling the future, and there is some of that in here, but most of the time the prophets aren’t talking about the future, they’re calling out the ways the people aren’t living up to their end of the covenant and reminding the people what God said the consequences were going to be!

-The way I’ve often heard this said is foretelling vs. forthtelling. Foretelling is talking about the future and forthtelling is speaking out to a group of people. A majority of the prophets are doing a lot of forthtelling and only a little (if any) foretelling.

-One of the things that we need to realize about the foretelling though is that the prophets don’t always distinguish between the near and far future. Some of the future are things that are fulfilled in Jesus, and other future things are things that will be fulfilled at Jesus’s second coming, but from where the prophets are looking they can’t see how long the difference is. I was taught this when I was in CO, so this was the illustration they used to teach me this concept. I lived on the front range, which is the flat part at the base of the Rocky Mountains. From the front range, you look at the mountains (like this) and it looks like just a wall directly in front of you, you can see there’s some smaller hills building up to the big mountains. But what’s harder to see is those aren’t the only mountains. There’s valleys in between, some other hills in between, so if you were to go up closer to that mountain you’d start to see this is a whole lot bigger than it looked like from the plains! So my (pretty rough) attempt to draw this would look like this:

-The prophets predict that something good is coming in the future as 2 distinct future events, but they don’t know the space between those 2 events. The point of the foretelling is for God to tell His people about these 2 realties, a near future hope and a far future hope. This will make more sense as we work our way through the books,

-Another component to the prophets is sometimes God has them do show & tell. They’re commanded to act certain things out as an illustration, a picture of something God wants them to understand, and some of them are kind of weird. In Isa. 20, the prophet Isaiah is commanded to walk naked and barefoot for 3 years to show that the king of Assyria was going to defeat Egypt and Cush and lead the captives out naked and barefoot. In Hosea, the prophet Hosea is commanded to take a wife of promiscuity and marry her as a picture of how Israel is treating their relationship with God. 

-Lastly (after this we’ll FINALLY look at Hosea) we need to understand the job description of a prophet. This is Moses speaking, I know we don’t often think of him this way, but Moses is the model that all future prophets are supposed to emulate. Notice who appoints a prophet? God does! And whose words does this prophet share? God’s! And what’s the consequence? God will hold all those who hear it accountable.

-What’s most amazing about the one true God is we don’t have to guess what He thinks! All the other gods at this time were mysterious, people didn’t know what they expected or how to please them, so they had to continually try different things. The only true and living God doesn’t work like that! He sent prophets to tell His people what God wanted, He sent His Son to tell His people what He wanted, and He left us His Word so that we could know what He wants, and He will hold us accountable to His commands in His Word.

  • A Picture of Love (1-3)

-The first thing we learn is the name of this prophet and the time period he was called to serve. And remember the 2 separate nations, so you’ve got 4 kings of Judah listed and 1 king from Israel. You can read about this in 1 Kings 14-15. This also shows us that Hosea was a prophet at the same time as Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, and Micah. 

-And Hosea’s ministry starts out with a bang! God commands him to marry a woman of promiscuity and have children with her. This is meant to serve as a sign to Israel about how God views the nations lack of commitment to and trust in Him.

-And unfortunately for the kids, they also get to serve as part of the signs to the nation. Up first is Jezreel. This is the location of bloody battle where King Jehu kills the whole house of King Ahab for their wickedness (2 Kings 9). It’s a little bit like being named something like “Iwo Jima” it would remind everyone of a specific battle. But the names get worse.

-Gomer has a daughter and is called to name her “No mercy.” Her whole life her name was supposed to be used as a reminder to the nation that God wouldn’t have mercy on them. And remember what’s distinct about Gomer: promiscuous. Did you notice that for the first child it says that she bore HIM (Hosea) a son, but these next 2 kids it doesn’t mention Hosea, it just says she conceived. Which means it’s possible that these other kids that Hosea is raising aren’t even his!

-The last child is named “Not my people.” God is rejecting them for their lack of faithfulness to the covenant.

-In chapter 2, after explaining the significance of this sign, God explains why He views Israel as an unfaithful spouse, and it begins with a play on the names of Hosea’s children: My people and compassion or mercy (same words!). God will reverse their fortunes if they repent. Israel has looked for their prosperity in other gods expecting them to provide for them. God says they don’t realize that He’s the one who’s provided everything they need. They’re assuming God’s blessings AND trying to get more benefit and wealth from other gods (particularly Baal, the fertility god, who was believed to bring bountiful harvests).

-But God’s not giving up. He knows there will come a day when they won’t look to anyone else, the people will come to God and acknowledge His provision in their lives. 

-In the last chapter of the sign, Hosea has to go buy back Gomer, pull her back out from her promiscuity and be faithful to him. Just like Israel will spend time in exile, but eventually come back to God and pursuing Him.

-Before we take a look at God’s accusations against Israel, I want to think about some ways we need to respond to this. I read a book recently that talked about “main character syndrome” referring to people assuming that they’re the hero and center of every story. If you want to see an example of this, just look at TikTok. People read a story like this and automatically assume they would be Hosea who would faithfully pursue a straying spouse. But friends, if we were in this story, we would be Gomer, playing the harlot. We run to other things instead of God to attempt to find meaning and purpose in our lives. We distract ourselves with devices so we don’t have to sit in silence and wrestle with our sins. See, the point of the Bible is you’re NOT the hero! You CAN’T save yourself! That’s why Jesus had to come. Augustine writing in the 4th century said, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Humans are born to be in relationship with God but because of sin there’s a chasm that separates us, so we look to anything to fill that void that nothing except God can fill it. Which is why we need God to continue pursuing us, which is what God talks about through Hosea next:

  • The Meaning of Love (4-14)

-This whole book is broken down into 3 sections, all starting with the same Hebrew word to begin a new list of indictments from the Lord (2:2 “rebuke” 4:1 “case” 12:1 “dispute). We already looked at some of these things from chpt. 2, and that same pattern continues throughout the book. God lists accusations against the nation, then talks about the judgment that will come as a response to those accusations, and lands on the ultimate restoration. 

-The whole nation is corrupt, even the priests are joining in the sin! (4)

–5 God accuses the people of looking to Assyria, another nation, for help instead of trusting in God to protect and preserve them.

–6 The people refuse to repent from their sin

–7 uses some ridiculous pictures to describe Israel’s trust in political alliances. The first is they’re like a baker who doesn’t know what he’s doing! If you’ve ever made pancakes, it says they’re like a baker who only bakes 1 side of the pancake and doesn’t bother flipping it. Similarly, one side of Israel is being destroyed but they’re refusing to admit it.

-The second picture is like a dove that flies randomly around, running to any nation they think might help them in the moment, so God will catch them in a net

-The last picture is they’re like a faulty bow, imagine a bow that can’t shoot straight. They keep aiming for the wrong things instead of looking to God.

–8 is the closing arguments of this section, God lists out all the ways they’ve sinned against Him, so He will destroy them. 

9-10 God shares how He will destroy the people for their sins, which are exactly like the sins of the previous generations, there’s nothing new, it’s the same old story.

11 but God refuses to give up on His bride! Matt. 2:15 quotes this verse in reference to Jesus, showing us some of the ways that God works in similar patterns throughout Scripture. Hosea’s readers would have heard this referring to the Exodus story, we hear it referring to the New Exodus in Jesus, which shows us that ultimately this story is pointing us to the coming of the Son! And look at how God talks about His relationship!

12 starts a new round of accusations where God compares the nation to their father Jacob, who was a liar and a trickster who selfishly tried to take advantage of others and improve himself

13 God shares the penalties that will be coming for their continued disobedience

14 God shares what redemption will look like for the nation if they return to the Lord in repentance

-So how should we respond to this book? God tells us He is the source of good, the only one who actually loves us and wants us to be blessed. So friends, what else are you tempted to look to for how you should define the “good life”

-Politics. I feel like our political world is being turned upside down right now! It’s hard to know who to trust! I’m completely fine talking about what’s going on in the world, but I’m not interested in either playing the blame game, or playing the justifying game. The 2 things that most trouble me are “they” and “yeah but.” If you ever want to meet and talk about what’s going on in the world, let’s do it (face to face), but don’t lump an entire group of people together and call them “they,” as in “If only they would…” “They” are human beings who are worthy of dignity, honor, respect, and love simply because they’re humans. The other piece that’s off the table is “Yeah, but what about…) (fill in the blank on any issue that you think is worse than what’s being discussed. Friends, if you can’t disagree or find issues with whatever your political party says, then I think your political party is shaping you more than the Bible is.

-Technology. Technology offers us the illusion of control and ease. We can ask ChatGPT to solve problems for us (or even worse, ask to be counseled by it!) We tend to look to technology to usher in a utopian vision where all is right with the world and we can sit in a circle singing kumbaya. How many people are looking to technology for salvation? Most of this is above my head, but I read a lot, so did you know that if it weren’t for AI and the companies making AI the stock market would be in a major recession? There’s our picture of our whole country placing our hopes in technology! 

-We could also talk about financial resources, are you looking to retirement, a house, a car, a trip to bring healing and wholeness to your life? I just talked to my kids about this: if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these things.

-At the end of the day, we either get God and blessing, or we run from God and receive neither Him nor blessing, we get only death

-Even as we are determined to sin and run to earthly things to satisfy us, God is even more determined to redeem and restore us. Did God ever stop pursuing Israel? And will God ever stop pursuing us?

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by mikethestrand on February 8, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, History, Relationships, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 8, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/02/08/hosea-sermon-manuscript/

Praying with Paul – Sermon Manuscript

-Last week was an “off” week with my ordination, thank you for your support through that! I’m thankful it’s done, and for the encouragement that came from that whole process. One of the most fascinating things to me about it is how infrequently we look to actively encourage each other! I can guarantee that no one around you is feeling TOO encouraged right now! Which gets us to this week’s topic: the prayers of Paul.

-Final week of this brief series. The first week we looked at the prayerbook of Jesus (the Psalms) and were reminded to use the Bible as a guide to our prayers. The second week, Micah took us through the Lord’s prayer as a helpful template to guide our prayers, but not as the only prayer we’re allowed to pray because no other prayer is exactly like it. Then, we looked at the need to pray honestly, to bring our true requests to God because He already knows them! 

-But there’s more to prayer than what we’ve seen so far because we’ve basically stopped at the Gospels, which is only the first 4 books of the NT. Paul mentions prayer regularly throughout his letters. Another inspiration for this sermon series is this book “A Call to Spiritual Reformation” (now retitled “Praying with Paul”)

-But before we get to those, I want to remind us of another reality about prayer. Friends, God hears your prayers. If you are His child, He hears every single one of your prayers. And how do I know that? Because of Revelation. I was reminded this week of a couple passages from that book (which we studied in detail over 2024, so if you want to hear that series you can find it online). 2 things: Revelation is meant to give us a glimpse of reality from God’s perspective, and it’s meant to be a blessing and encouragement to the church. It’s one of the most comforting books in the Bible, because it tells us that God’s actually in control! But prayer is mentioned in 2 passages, 5, and 8. 5 tells us the same thing that 8 does: that the elders and creatures have golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And look at what chpt. 8 tells us these prayers do: go up into the very presence of God. Remember what I said about this book being a comfort to us? This is what I mean! Our prayers fill the presence of the throne room of God! Keep that image in mind as we continue:

READ/PRAY (1048)

  1. What Does Paul Pray For?

-I did a search of the word “pray” (so it includes prayer and praying) but doesn’t include things like ask or intercede to try to limit a little bit. Paul uses it in 52 verses throughout his 13 letters, the only ones that don’t have the word pray in them are Galatians and Titus. Here’s the breakdown of where Paul uses pray (see the focus in Ephesians?) I’m going to begin by simply reading every single one of these verses, and as I’m reading them (they’ll be on the screens) see if you notice any common themes or ideas popping up throughout them all, and then we’ll go on to talk about 2 things that stood out to me from these texts, and how we should incorporate those ideas into our prayers. I’ve already highlighted each use of pray so you can easily see them on the screen. Are you ready for this? We’re going to go pretty quickly through them!

-Did you notice any themes pop out through them all? What stands out to me is how different this is from so many of my prayers, and the prayers I hear from other people. How many of our prayers are focused either on our prosperity or our physical health? Don’t get me wrong, those aren’t bad things to pray for, James commands us to pray for the sick and Jesus tells us to ask God who will answer us, but what is the percentage of our prayers that are focused on those things instead of the things we see Paul mentioning that he’s praying about?

-Not only that, but Paul seems to assume that his prayers will be answered. There’s no waffling, no giving up, no complaining about a delay to His prayers. He expects that God is going to respond to his requests.

-This is why I began with a couple quotes from Revelation. Friends, do you realize that your prayers are brought before the throne of God like incense? Like imagine it’s summer or fall, the 2 months where it’s tolerable to live in MN. You decide to have a bonfire. You get the grahams, chocolate (only Hershey’s), and mallows ready, build the perfect tee-pee with kindling, and you’re off to the races. When the fire dies down, and you have to douse it with water at the end of the evening, what do you smell like? Smoke! Even after you shower and change your clothes, right? I feel like my beard smells like smoke for at least 2 days after I’m at a bonfire, which is why I’m digging the new smokeless firepits!

-But combine that bonfire reality with the description of our prayers in Revelation: our prayers linger around the throne room of God like smoke on our bodies after a bonfire. Friends, God isn’t distant or aloof! He hears every prayer, and every prayer lingers on Him because He cares for us.

-One of the passages that has been lingering in my mind this week is Rom. 12:15. Within 5 minutes this week, I got 2 different texts, 1 from someone who got a new job offer that we’ve been praying for for 4 years, and another one from someone who was told he would be cut to part-time effective Monday. How do you deal with those 2 bipolar realities? I think I’ve shared this from the pulpit before, but in 2022 Cara had 2 miscarriages before the twins came along. And as she was going through one of those miscarriages, I was walking into church when someone stopped me to share that they were expecting another child. And a part of me was angry and hurting, and at the same time I was grateful that this couple was expanding their family and rejoiced with them. How do we live in those 2 realities, and often at the same time?

-Friends, welcome to the church! God calls all of us together to be a body, to love each other through every circumstance, and to recognize that not everyone is in the same place as us. Some people are coming in excited and thankful, and others are coming in weary and exhausted. And Paul reminds us to pray for everyone! But back to my original question, what things is he praying for? The 2 things that stood out to me this week were thanksgiving and growth or maturity. We could use a number of verses to see these modeled, but for simplicity sake we’ll look at the end of 1 Thess. and the beginning of 2 Thess. (same spot in the pew Bible!)

  • Thanksgiving (1 Thess. 5:16-18)

-I remember reading this in college, when this verse really popped out at me because my friends and I were always trying to figure out God’s will. How do you know which major to pursue, is this girl the right one for me to date, where should I work in the summer? There was 1 person I knew who wouldn’t do anything until she felt like the Lord had prompted her to, so she would skip class if she thought the Lord hadn’t told her to go. It was weird! This verse tells us that God’s will isn’t some mystery that we’re supposed to try to figure out, like a maze where there’s only 1 right path, and if you get off, you’re done. God’s will for all of us is a different way of living, God wants a certain character to mark out His people, we’re not supposed to live in fear of falling out of God’s will for us, we’re supposed to be chasing after Him, taking steps closer to Him each day, and then live a normal human life.

-But in order to understand what we’re supposed to give thanks for; we have to take a look at the larger context of this letter. This exhortation comes at the end of this letter where Paul has written to remind the church to remain faithful in following Jesus. They were worried that those who died would miss Jesus’s return, so he writes them to remind them that they’d know when Jesus comes back, they literally wouldn’t be able to miss it! In addition, because Jesus is coming back, He expects His people to act and behave a certain way. 

-Paul begins with a reminder to respect or honor the leaders of the church. We looked at those last Fall in much more detail in our walk through 1 Timothy. Thessalonians doesn’t articulate what the leadership is, but it shows that Paul expects leaders in every church. If you weren’t here with us last Fall, what Paul lays out in 1 Timothy is 2 church offices: elders and deacons. Elders focus on teaching the Word and praying for the church, deacons focus on the physical and practical needs of the church. You can go back to those sermons to learn more if you’re interested!

-And then included in this section is a reminder to be at peace. Now, I’m not sure how you’re feeling right now, but right now this feels like nonsense to me! How can Paul command the church to be at peace when the world is full of conflict and tension? Is there any way this can match up to reality? The good news is that answer is YES, but the bad news is it’s only in this community of believers called the church, as soon as we walk out those doors and go back into the world we’re not going to see peace. And church – we can be at peace because of what Jesus Christ has done. 

-Paul also tells us how we’re supposed to engage each other as brothers and sisters: warn, comfort, help, and be patient. Anytime we’re interacting with someone, we’re only seeing a glimpse of what’s going on in their lives, and many times people are bringing hurts and insecurities with them wherever they go. So as we talk to fellow Christians, we should be thinking about where they’re at. Do they need a warning to ensure their life is reflecting what God has called? Are they discouraged and in need of comfort? Are they worn down and weak and need some help? And regardless of where they’re at, we’re commanded to be patient. Church – this is how we help each other take 1 step closer to Jesus each day! Growing more like Him takes a lifetime, which is why we need the reminder to be patient with each other. 

-If we’re able to come alongside each other, we’ll be able to ensure that we’re pursuing with is good for others. As Christians, we’re supposed to forgive others as God has forgiven as. In fact, did you notice in the Lord’s prayer that we ask God to forgive us AS we forgive others? So we’re commanded to ask God to only forgive us as much as we forgive others. I hope you’re quick to forgive!

-Then we get to the primary verses for us from this section! Rejoice, pray, and give thanks 24/7/365. This is God’s desire for us; it’s the way we’re able to live out all the previous commands. And Paul goes on to remind us where the battle is really fought: in the spiritual realm.

-Don’t stifle (quench, suppress) the work of the HS. Are there ways you’re doing that? Could be through dismissing promptings in your life, could be living in unrepentant sin, could be from not living in a church community that God has called you to engage in! A way we ensure we’re not stifling the spirit is by giving high regard to the prophecies (words from God) that are tested and true according to the rest of God’s Word! And friends, because we have the Holy Spirit living in us, and God’s Word to guide us, we should be marked by thankfulness on a daily basis.

-Lastly, if you go to the next page of the pew Bibles, we’ll see what else Paul asks for this church, and this will be quicker:

  • Growth (2 Thess. 1:11-12)

-Your theological term for the day is sanctification, that is becoming more holy. Once again, I think we need some broader context to understand why Paul says what he does in these last 2 verses. And if the theme of 1 Thess. is to not worry because they wouldn’t miss Jesus’s second coming because He IS coming, the theme of 2 Thess. is but not that soon! And ironically enough, this section begins with another thanksgiving, hence why I chose thanksgiving as one of the themes to emphasize in Paul’s prayers! But what is he thankful FOR?

-Faith is flourishing, mutual love is increasing, another way of saying that is Paul is giving thanks for their growth in the gospel. Once again, when’s the last time you gave thanks to God for someone’s growth in the gospel? Not only does Paul give thanks to God, he also boasts about them to other churches! 

-All these verses are 1 long run-on sentence in the Greek, so it’s an extended explanation of why from Paul. This church is persevering through persecution, and Paul reminds that that the suffering is worth it, because in the end God’s justice will be delivered to those who opposed God and His people. That’s the summary of vss. 5-10! Some people will bear the penalty, and others have had that penalty paid for by someone else.

-Because God’s justice is coming, Paul’s prayer for this church is that God will make them worthy, and that they will live out their transformed lives by doing good. It’s important for us to note that these good works don’t earn salvation and don’t even earn special recognition from God. We do good works because of our transformed hearts, not as a way to earn special favor from God. But we are supposed to be praying that our transformed hearts would be evident in the ways we live, by doing good works.

-And the last verse is the reason we pray for growth: so that Jesus would be glorified. Friends, prayer is useless if it’s only focused on us. The point of prayer is to align our hearts and minds with God, for Him to be glorified in our lives through our thoughts, words, and deeds. To look for ways for Him to increase as we continually look for ways for us decrease.

-So as we conclude this series what are the things I hope (pray!) you’ve taken away from it?

-First – learn how to pray by using the Bible! Jesus used it as his source of prayers, Christians throughout history have used it to know how to pray, and we should continue that tradition. The book of Psalms is especially helpful!

-Second – in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us how to have the correct orientation to our prayers. We start with God, acknowledging that He is God and we’re not, and only when we grasp that reality can we move to asking for our daily bread.

-Third – we need to pray honestly. Don’t hide behind walls or pretend like everything is ok when it’s not. God invites you to continually beg Him!

-Finally, this week we saw that Paul models that we should always be thanking God for all the ways He’s continually at work in us, through us, and around us. AND we should ask for continued growth for ourselves and our church body. SO THAT the name of Jesus would be glorified in us. All to His glory alone!

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by mikethestrand on February 1, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 1, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/02/01/praying-with-paul-sermon-manuscript/